How Do You Do That James Bond Thing? OW!

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

-Elbert Hubbard 

So I've been having a heavy dose of nostalgia lately. Maybe it's because all my friends are in college and I am not right at the moment. Maybe because one of my best friends is currently living in Jerusalem and getting emails from her brings FLOODS of awesome and awkward memories back. Maybe it's because I just rediscovered freshmen and sophomore years' quote walls. Maybe it's because remembering the past makes me excited for the future.

In any case this WHOLE post is about memories that include Lottie. We've been friends for exactly two and a half-ish years... exactly. Freshmen year is another testament to me that God's hand has been leading my life. How else can you explain randomly signing up for housing and ending up meeting five of your best friends ever. (I have a lot of best friends, if you haven't figured that out by now). The first time I met Lottie I knew we were going to be friends. Our friendship can be logically categorized into seven areas...

1. Grocery Shopping
While I knew Lottie and I were bound to be friends, our first bonding moment was at Wal-Mart. It was just Court, Lottie, and me. Court is a very slow and indecisive shopper and Wal-Mart is a big store. So what did we do? Pestered Court together, found crazy outfits, and all-in-all reeked havoc. Insistent friendship.

We could never go to Macey's without coming back with a story and some chocolate chips. There was the time we payed for 60 cent ice cream cones with only pennies... and then the time we payed with a credit card. Not sure which time was more embarrassing.  Then there was the time we were waiting for another roommate at the front of the store, when we kept having to move to get out of people's way. The following conversation ended up on the famous quote wall...

Sorry... we're always in the way.

-me

Yeah....

-Randi Macey's Worker

To be fair to him, we hadn't even hear me and was answering someone else's question... it was just classic timing. 

The Creamery... so many memories. Midnight runs right before it closed, running from our gimpy roommate because we didn't want to buy her bread, and fake kissing stories that our roommates believed until the very last day of freshmen year. Classic.

2. People Watching in the Music Section in the Library

It should say studying...but...yeah... Anyway, we spent so much time there we could almost predict when people would show up. The mushy-recently-married-couple. The-worker-that-one-of-us-might-have-had-a-crush-on-and-it-wasn't-me. The-kid-in-our-ward-that-we-never-built-up-the-courage-to-talk-to. And many, many more. Every time Little Women or Rachmaninoff would come on, we would stop studying and just listen. And when we had been there waaaay too long we would chat over facebook or gmail chat. Come on! We were desperate! Oh, and have you ever eaten a PB&J sandwich and chocolate chips in front of the library security guard? Can you say food Nazis? Very tricky business.

3. Friday Night Activities

We usually ended up being the only ones home on Friday nights, so we made our own entertainment. Chick-flick marathons. Redecorating the apartment according to the season or holiday. Dollar movies. Window shopping at the mall. Getting lost looking for the Springville Wal-Mart. (How the heck did we end up on the wrong side of the free-way?) Making crepes or Better then... you know... cake. Eating Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream.  I think almost everything we did included ice cream. 

4. Interpretative Dancing 

Yeah... Finals really take it out of you.

5. Funny Quotes 

Just some of my favorites...

YOU'RE EATING POP-TARTS? (I swear she leaped up all of the stair in a single bound) 

Oh, I wish I was pregnant... because then I would have a reason my stomach is expanding.

Do you remember when we almost died here? I knew my time had come. (Ok, we weren't THAT close) 

There goes my life! 

(I really am not out to kill her, I promise!)

Danielle, I'm going to change my mind 

in about 10 seconds!

Now we'll all take turns beatting Danielle.

 (The violence goes both ways.)

If you ask me NOT to do something, I'm going to OBVIOUSLY do it.

(The title is also a famous quote of Lottie's. She was trying to be a spy and tumbled into the wall...) 

6. Story Time

Every day when we would come home we would always have to tell each other the funny stories that happened to us or when ever we would run into a cute guy. Most of our conversations started out, "Oh, my gosh! Guess what happened today!" We still email  back and forth anything semi-comical that happens to us. I always get giddy when I see I have an email from Lottie. Sometimes I squeal...

7. Late Night Chats

Freshman year Lottie had a designated space in Court and I's room. It was even taped off.... only Lottie could set there. Anyone else... pain of death! All three of us would stay up way too late and talk about everything. From boys to the gospel to stupid professors. My mom was actually kinda worried when we decided to become room roommates.... she was afraid neither of us would ever sleep. Ummm.... about that...

Lottie has decided to go on a mission. She will be awesome, because she already is. I mean, she's my friend right? Besides that, she will rock where ever she gets called to. While I am extremely excited for her, I am also sad. This means it will be more then two years before we can hangout again. But can you imagine the reunion?

"I have such a funny story to tell you!"  

  

They see me mowin'... my front lawn

"True friends are always together in spirit."

- Anne of Green Gables

Here I am sitting, watching the BYU vs USU game realizing I never documented my amazing weekend trip to visit my longtime friend Susan, up in Logan. But better late then never. Susan has been my friend from before birth and I mean that literally. In the Spirit World Sus and I were best friends so we made a pact that birth would not separate us. So we put our little angel skills together and made sure her dad didn't get the job in Idaho and mine didn't get the one in Wisconsin. I mean, we were that good! We were only separated for six months when we both sensed each other in a sacrament meeting. So we did what any other babies would have done that shared brainwaves... we bawled. (just so you know, we still share brainwaves) And promptly had to be taken out to the mother's room, where our moms met and found out we were related. So not only is Susan one of my best friends, she is my fourth cousin. We've been inseparable since. Even through two ward changes and going to two different elementary schools. Our friendship even lasted through the interstate rival of BYU and USU (hence the reminder I needed to write this) although I think USU sees it of more of a rivalry then BYU does... just saying. Hope Susan will still love me after that comment. :)

Anyways, we've gone back and forth to visit each other and it was my turn to enter into the 'hurd.' My first full day there we did some porch sitting. Which constitutes sitting on the porch and waiting for cool  people to come and talk to you. It really works! You sit... on the porch... and boys come and talk to you. Why did I not think of this before! It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! I realized how much I missed the whole collage experience. It was great.

That evening we went to the USU fight and a hockey game broke out. And let me tell you... I have never seen so many bitter fans. They weren't even playing their imaginary rival BYU. It was Montana State for goodness sake!  One of their favorite chants is, "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!" A player got ejected from the game... has that EVER happened in the history of hockey? I thought no matter who bad your 'foul' (I am showing my lack of knowledge on the subject of hockey) you just got put in the 'time out' plenty box for 10 minutes like a bad little boy, and then you could come back in and play? Well, you thought wrong, Danielle. Anyway, I went with Rebecca, my other friend that is also roomies with Susan, because Susie-q was on a date! So of course when Susan and her date sat three rows in front of us, what did Becca and I do? Threw candy wrappers at them. Real mature. And then took funny face pictures. So needless we turned into those annoying girls that real sports fans hate. You know the ones that talk and laugh through the whole game? The ones that distract the avid hockey fan because we have no clue what it going on. Yeah, that was us.

Before the game. How pretty! 

At the game... how pretty?

After the game, Susan was still on her date, so Becca and I had to find some age appropriate way to entertain ourselves until she came home.  So we wrote all of the lyrics to that classic song, White N' Nerdy on every single mirror in their apartment. The bathroom, the hallway, each bedroom and even Susan's little personal makeup mirror. Yes, we did. It took us almost two hours but was so worth it.

Oh, Weird Al... how we love your brilliance 

And this one too!

Then another classic college tradition. A Beto's run at midnight and talking about the date while eating our spoils!

 Saturday consisted of getting up late and watching the pink bible version of Pride and Prejudice in our PJs. Then off to half of a football game. Perfect recipe for a fall Saturday! Afterwards that high adventure began. Susan and I went rock climbing with two guys from her ward. You know that phrase what goes up must come down? Well, I have this talent of 'coming down' before I even get up. That's right I biffed it even before I made it to the rock. This consisted of me sliding on my belly down the trail almost all the way back to the road. It was a good thing Becca talked me into changing into a t-shirt. One of Susan's friends had to help me up. Oh, embarrassment. And of course I am prideful but there was really no way out of the situation but to... gasp... accept a boy's help. Curse my inner feminist!  It turned into a really funny situation about how he really wanted to hold my hand, and succeeding and me checking out his butt. Yeah, don't ask, it just happened. But guess what? After my fall, I actually went up! On a rock. In real nature. I really did, although I have no pictures to prove it. Sad day. Susan and I were just so excited to go we forgot our camera. Going down the trail was fun too, cause we had no light and it was pitch black. When we finally got down, one of the boys announced that he realized he had a flash light the whole time! Silly boy! It was classic. Four people struggling... through the dark... over real rocks... in real nature... just to find out they had a light the whole time. Oh, well. After gettin' dirty and feeling like a boy, Susan and I decided we needed to have some balance in our lives and do something girly. So we grabbed Becca and went to the mall to buy smelly lotion and pretty jewelry. And because I was visiting and it was my last normal day, I went to the mall in my 'naturally sandblasted jeans' and the grunge look. So girly...

Not me... not even close. But that is about as high up as I got.
 Just wanted to give you a visual

Thanks to Rebecca Black I now know that after Saturday, Sunday comes afterwooords... which for the Mormon community can sometime be the busiest day. Church, dinner group, making treats for ward prayer, going to ward pray, watching a mormon movie, and staying up until 3 in the morning talking about boys. Yeah, just another Sunday for a stereotypical single Mormon girl. Oh, and get this... the lesson during RS/Priesthood was on dating and the law of chastity. Typical. I now remember why I chose to go to the family ward this summer/fall. I had to go home the next day and Susan had to go back to class. Why, real world? Why? But it was just the break I needed!

So it is the end of the game and BYU lost, but no worries Susan and I's friendships is still intact. :D