It is so much fun to shop for men! I was supremo nervous about my shopping trip with Bj, since I had only been with him to pick out clothes once before… and it was hell. Well, it was just so unlike shopping with a girl, I was shocked!  He didn’t want to talk while trying on clothes. Like if I said, “how did those ____________ fit?” or “have you tried on ____________ yet?” He got all defensive and said, “why are you bugging me while I’m trying to try on clothes?” What? Hello? I am trying to be helpful. So ya, that was three years ago. And that was about the last time he bought clothes too. For real.

Now that he had this real job he knew he had to get clothes, so know is half the battle. He also knew that he had to shop the sales, and that to use all the coupons his mom found he would have to be done by noon. We got to the shop (Meier and Frank) and got to it. Here is the amazing thing about guys clothes. They size by exact numbers. No vague size 8 which can really mean anything it seems, but actual numbers. He wears a 34×34, like always. It’s so easy, you just say, hey try this on and basically they just do for looks because they know it will fit. Then the shirts, they don’t even try them on! I’m not exaggerating when I say that. They come in little packs all neat and they stay that way until you bring them home. All you have to know is your neck size (I thought this was so funny), and length. Viola! You can pick out any color and they all fit the same. It’s like buying 12×12 patterned paper, you know it’s going to fit in the book. It’s genius. Well really what I think helps the guys out is their lack of boobs. That is what really throws this system off for girls.

After he got all these goodies we came back to his place and his mom painstakingly ironed everything he got and hung it so it would be perfect the first time he wore it. She is just too sweet to do that, especially because the iron was hot and Bj doesn’t have air conditioning. But Bj and I didn’t just sit around. Though we had most everything put together from Ikea we still had some arranging and organizing to do. So we worked on that, watched big brother and I headed home. I had so much fun helping Bj out. I even got him to toss a bunch of old clothes. He had some cool shirts that were too worn to wear any more, or had suffered from the unfortunate pen in the washing machine incident and were written all over. But the fabric was still cool in big enough pieces of these tops that I kept them. I am going to cut rectangles out of them and make a coin quilt like Hillary did over at Wee Wonderfuls. He had a bunch of reds and blues so I might do something patriotic. Phew. Shopping is hard work:

In other news I got my backtack bag and it is way too awesome to just mention in passing so I am going to devote an entry to its wonderfulness hopefully tomorrow. Oh and, have you seen this:

I swear this is the cutest thing I have ever seen. The space shuttle looks so itty bitty and cute!!!  It’s is being piggybacked to home base (Florida) since it couldn’t land there. Bill told me about this, and I was like, “whatever.” These are the things I don’t like to believe until I see because I don’t want to be taken. But it’s real. I read it in the newspaper, saw it on ABC and this image is from Nasa’s website which has lots of cool pictures and articles about the process. Can you believe we can do this stuff? Humans are so smart sometimes.

This is Ariana, my cousin Ryan’s little girl. She is going to be six in October and I met her today for the first time. She came over with my brother to swim. Her eyes and nose could be my cousins. I think she is one of the cutest little girls I’ve ever seen!  She was crazy in the pool, like jumping off our legs and out of our arms. Did I mention she can’t swim (but would like lessons please)? This was the highlight of my day for sure. The rest of it I just spent organizing and cleaning. That was good to though, because I like everything to be in it’s place so I know where to get it. I still have an art cabinet in the garage to figure out and my room needs a little work, but I’m getting settled. Bj is coming down to pick me up so we can go to Ikea tomorrow with his mom. Should be fun, let’s hope I don’t go crazy there, I just love Ikea.

*yes that is Ribbon Jar ribbon in her hair. I asked her if she would like some for her hair and she said, “something pretty with flowers please.” So cute.

Okay yes, for god’s sake I am alive. And that should be the last of that kind a phrase I have to say for a while. I wish I could stop saying, “No, this is not Jorge” (pronounced whore-hey). But that doesn’t seem likely as someone gave out my phone number as theirs. I guess it’s payback for getting my business cards for Ribbon Jar misprinted with another companies phone number (so not my fault by the way, Qwest sucks). I digress:

Lifesaving drills rock. Well they do if you have a cute dancer as your unit leader (and guess who did? that would be me). No silly, this isn’t him, but my brother. I found out later that you can’t bring your camera to these things. Did my curly haired dancer stop me, nope. So ya, we were on a cruise. My whole step-dad’s family (22 strong). From 18 months to like over 80 years. He has a really nice family, and they are pretty funny so that is awesome (I mean like they enjoy a good joke, not like they look weird or something). We saw all the Alaskan things that I was semi-afraid were going to be ploys to get you to come on a cruise. But they are real people!!!  I saw a friggin huge Humpback whale jump completely out of the water. It was just frolicking around. And the killer’s?  Ya I saw a bunch of those, traveling around in packs. Much to Taylor and my disappointment however we did NOT see one kill a caribou. So I guess I will be going back (seriously they gang up and kill big animals like that, Taylor told me and I didn’t believe him so I went and looked it up in the ship’s library. They even eat the tongues out of Humpbacks and other Baleen whales :<).

I did lots of really cool stuff too. Here is my step-cousin, Brice, and me getting ready to risk our lives on a ropes course. Even though I did end up almost doing a complete split twenty feet in the air between the ropes I guess it wasn’t that dangerous. But seriously fun (and the next day I was so, sooooo sore).

I also hiked around the Mendenhall Glacier area (with from bottom: Arron (my step brother who is back from Iraq yeah!!), Brianna (niece, way too cute), Coralia (Arron’s wife and maker of best pico di gala ever -sp?), Brent (brother, and general jokester), Mom, and Bill (step-dad who has not said too much about me taking over the house, and even helped me put stuff up!!!). Hmm, Taylor (another step-brother) must have been racing ahead and is not in the picture.

I even canoed up to a glacier (so it had a little motor, so what). Now how did I get to go on this adventure?  Well Bill’s mom, Mrs. Walters (“not Pat, Amber, that is rude,” said mom) took all her kids:

And their significant others and children. And she included me and my brother, which was so nice of her. I hadn’t been on a family type vacation in a long, long time and this was so nice. Guess who’s getting a cool scrapbook thank you?!?!

Okay so what happened between Memphis and Now besides that week?  Well Sciarrino and I headed down to San Fran for a trade show and drove up the redwoods way which I managed to get super horrible pictures of. After I got back the realization set in that I had exactly three days to move and wasn’t really packed. So I got to work and still didn’t finish it all. Luckily I have the best boyfriend in the entire world (no, I really dare you to find a better one), who moved the rest for me when I was up north. Then we were gone.

Wait I feel like I forgot something? Hmm… Oh ya:

BJ GOT A JOB, A REAL JOB, WITH BENEFITS AND EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is a grown up people. And the best part? It’s in Oregon. Wait, PORTLAND> that is only an hour away!!! Of course I did get a little teary eyed when I realized it was 54.2 miles to his cool new apartment and that takes 56 minuets in really good traffic, but still, it could have been California! He starts on Monday and I get to go help him pick out new clothes this weekend, as Tex says, I can, “dress him up like a little man doll.” I don’t know about that but he did say he would try on three outfits of my choosing which is really good since he usually doesn’t try anything on.