Happy Anniversary

First off. It says that Mary published this post. No no no. The literary genius behind this is actually Michelle. I use Mary's computer because mine is a p.o.s. and the wi-fi stopped working. I forgot to log in as ME and not Mary. Anyway......

A year ago in August... me, Mary, and our two buddies Jeff and Marcelo took a trip to Las Vegas and California. It seriously was one of, if not THE, most fun road trips I've ever been been on. It was a whirlwind of adventures, and super duper cheap thanks to Jeff's relatives' home in Vegas we stayed at, and Marcelo's relatives' home in California. Also, my car's pretty good gas mileage helped a bit as well :-)

A few pictures of our adventures:

Overpriced Italian Food Restaurant

Millionth try to get the whole tower in the picture. Thanks random drunk Australian guy who somehow was the only person (out of all the other sober people that unsuccessfully tried before him) who knew how to hold and use a simple point and shoot camera.

What do 4 Mormons do in Vegas? Well we certainly won't be drinking or purchasing hookers! So we are super cool and sit on random benches and spend at least an hour of our night taking pictures of our faces.

Big Baby

Bliss. One of my favorite pictures in the whole wide world. I miss this so much.

We have like 8 million pictures, and Mary even made a book out of them. So please understand that this doesn't even come close to representing our trip. It's just that this post isn't about that trip. So if you'd prefer a post about that trip, then please visit this land: http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=f79a1aac9a0a7833aa1a9d083988b2d8&version=38331

Anyway well, it had been entirely wayyyyy too long since spending some good quality time with our boys. I got a text from Marcelo about me and Mary going to a work-related event with him on Saturday August 20, so of course we did, and turned it into an all-day adventure in honor of our One Year Anniversary of our fun-filled 2010 adventure!!!. Sadly, Jeff couldn't make it... :-( WE MISSED YOU JEFF!!!

We decided to see an early showing of a movie around 4ish, so wanted to get dinner (or Linner) before since we knew we would starve to death if we had to wait till afterward. We went to Sawadee since we recently learned that it's pretty much the best Thai food ever in the world. Also, we saw Elder Eyring (sp?) there once, so if a Mormon Apostle thinks it's good....you better bet your bottom dollar it's good.

Well. Apparently, the restaurant doesn't open till 5pm on Saturdays, so we had to do the movie without dinner. Linner. Whatever. Which was a seriously problem, because all 3 of us people in that car get rather cranky when we can't get fed when we are hungry. Something takes over and it's like MUST. EAT. NOW. And we all remembered the incident of needing food driving back home from California and stopping in Vegas again for food....we wanted Cafe Rio but it was harder to find than we thought...and we were about ready to sacrifice one of the four of us and cook them right there on the sidewalk since it was hot enough outside to do so. Yes, we were ready to resort to cannibalism.

We all were almost at that point on this particular day as well, so we stopped at Wendy's for dollar menu items because we really really really needed something to hold us over and there wasn't time for anything else. That line took at least 20 minutes. Insane. And it took everything in me not to leap across the counter and start shoving fries and crispy chicken sandwiches down my throat.

We finally ordered, ate, and left. We eventually made it to the theater just in time. Had some good laughs, then went home to chill. After a bit of relaxing and laziness, we went to Red Mango. Oh oh oh I forgot to mention that earlier that morning we went to the one year anniversary of Eleanor's Bake Shop because our friend's family owns it and OOOHHHH MY HOLY CRAP.......BEST BAKED GOODS EVERRRRRR. But I'm going to move on because I need to dedicate a whole blog post in order to illustrate just how great this place is.

So, to review, me and Mary went to 4 RESTAURANTS that day. Yes, 4, Granted, I just bought a loaf of bread at the bakery, so that didn't really count but still. I did get a free cookie when I walked in. Morsels of joy rather than a cookie, actually.

Funny quotes from the day that I can remember:

Marcelo, in reference to his hunger pains: "Let me tell you what my body is going through right now: I'm losing my vision, I'm nauseous, and I've got that irritating headache right behind both of my eyes."

Right after we left Wendy's the looooong line finally disappeared, which was at a really random time of day, usually really slow:

 Marcelo: "Well, I guess we made it just in time for the Linner rush."

Just after the opening scene of the movie, we're in the back row, and it's really loud from laughter or something. Maybe just dialogue from the movie and or music. I can't remember, but it was not quiet at the moment:

Marcelo whispered to Mary: "Do you have any pain-killers?"

Mary, coincidentally at the same exact time the theater became silent: "HUH? YEAH SURE I HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF DRUGS!!!"

Those all-caps would lead you to believe that Mary was maybe border-line yelling. You would be correct in that assumption.

So apparently I should have written this post sooner, because that's all I've got. Aaaand I don't think these quotes are funny for anybody except for those who were involved. But oh well. It was good times. The evidence:

Marcelo dropped his lemonade as soon as we were walking back to my car. It was a really sad moment for everyone.

The obligatory anniversary photo. Right as this picture was being taken, I asked (through my teeth since I was trying to maintain my smile) Marcelo if he felt like a pimp. He is a pimp.

Happy Anniversary Marcelo Gomez and Jeffrey Hammond! One year down, many more to come, inshallah!

I want to take one last moment to emphasize that I've actually known Marcelo since I first started working the Olive Garden in 2007, and I'm pretty sure I met Jeff about a year before this trip. The anniversary is commemorating our ridiculously fun and crazy road trip.