Birthday Festivities

Well, I think I can safely say that this birthday was epic. :)

Melissa promised me birthday surprises on Friday. She made me promise to be off work at 5:15. At 5:15 on the dot, I came upstairs (oh, the joys of working from home!) with my purse, ready to go. Melissa was waiting patiently on the couch. A moment later, the doorbell rang, and we opened it to discover.... the Puppies for Rent delivery girl, with our very special guest, Jamie!

Puppies for Rent is this great company in town that takes unwanted puppies and helps them find homes. You can rent to adopt, or just rent for a little while (we had Jamie for an hour and a half). So far, Puppies for Rent has had a 100% success rate of finding homes for their puppies.

We took Jamie to the park to play. She was a little explorer, always wanting to run around and sniff everything.

After the delivery girl came by to pick her up, we grabbed our purses and headed out the door. Melissa turned the sound off on her Google maps and kept it tilted away from me when she consulted it, so I had no idea of where we were going until....

we arrived here!

Scheels is a giant sporting goods store that is almost like a mini-theme park, complete with animatronic presidents,

Why hello, Abraham Lincoln!

 photo opts with adorable animals,

 and even a Ferris Wheel!

Melissa remembered I'd had "ride a Ferris wheel" on my summer bucket list, but I didn't get to do it. So she looked up the nearest one, and voila! :) The funny thing is, I was so excited to go on it, but the first time we went around I freaked out. My fear of heights kicked in. Slowly, though, I got over it, and I ended up having a blast. I would like to go back and ride it again. :)

We ended up having dinner at Scheels. I tried my very first bison meat.

It was pretty good, but I'm probably not starting a bison farm anytime soon.

Now for obligatory pics where I pretend to be sporty:

I have it on good authority that I am holding this gun wrong.

Also, here is me with George Washington.

After Scheels, the night was not over. We headed over to Trafalga's Family Fun Center, where we had a rousing round of glo golf (I actually do pretty okay at mini-golf :) and laser tag. Laser tag was a blast--running around in the dark, with dramatic music playing. Unfortunately I need to work on my stealthiness, my aim, and holding the gun with both hands (I didn't have my left hand in the right position... for most of the game my gun was beeping loudly and proclaiming that I needed to hold it with both hands. I couldn't seem to find the sensor). I came in second to last... but it was still epic!!!

Then to finish things off, on Saturday, we went to see "The Giver" at the Dollar Theatre. It is waaay different than the book, but it has a beautiful message about agency and opposition in all things. I really loved it. :) If you haven't seen it, definitely Redbox it.

And then today, Elder Ballard came to speak at our multi-stake conference!!

All in all, it was an excellent birthday. A million thanks to Melissa for making it one of the best.

My Secret Spy Mission

And so, the birthday festivities continue!

Last night, Melissa and I went to Tucanos for my free birthday meal. If you haven't been and you love meat, you should try it... in your birthday month. Register for their birthday club. They are very pricey normally (we're talking $24/plate!), but if you are in their birthday club, you get a free meal... provided you have at least one other person paying full price. Melissa and I have a tradition of going for each other's birthdays and splitting the cost of the full price meal.

Tucanos is fun. You sit at your table, and servers bring around endless selections of meat. You take as much as you like. You have this little totem on your table that's red on one side and green on the other. When you want more meat, you leave the green side up. When you want it to stop coming, you flip it to red. Plan on not being hungry for like, three days after you go (gotta eat your money's worth, right? :)

Tonight, Melissa came downstairs before institute to invite me to go Geocaching. As this is my new favorite hobby, I was jazzed by this. First, we located a Geocache at UVU (we go to UVU for Institute). After Institute, Melissa drove us to a park in Provo where she'd heard that there was a good one. She wasn't quite sure where the park was, so we drove around for a bit to find it. We read through the clues carefully--it was hidden under a capstone. We weren't quite sure what that meant, and I couldn't see any stones around. But we set off across the park, until we came upon a stone wall, and we realized the top stones were stacked so there were gaps underneath them, and the top stones could be lifted off.

We started lifting stones to look, but they were so heavy it took two of us to do it (granted, Melissa was only using one hand, and I am a total weakling). We picked up a few with no luck. Then Melissa decided we should go systemically, one at a time, and the very next one happened to be where it was!

There was a coded message hidden inside along with the cache log. I didn't want to take it, since you're not supposed to take things like that out of the cache. I tried to take a picture of it with my phone so we could decode it later, but my phone was at 6% battery so it shut down right after I snapped it. I wasn't sure it saved.

But it did save and here it is!

Melissa's phone was at 17%, and we needed to conserve that to work the Geocaching app. She suggested we just take the cipher with us and bring it back later. "Is that allowed?" I asked. "Sure," she said, "I mean, no one else is going to come looking for this tonight."

So we took it and went on our merry way, to a third geocache hidden in a roundabout island. This is not your standard boring roundabout island--it had a tall rock wall, trees and bushes, 6 American flags, a "Provo Welcomes the World" Sign.... and it built up to a tall hill, but there were a few dips in it where someone could easily hide out of sight. We knew the cache was between two specific flags, so we were digging around looking for it when we heard rocks shifting, and all of a sudden a man appeared from behind a tree. We all stared at each other awkwardly. "Hi," Melissa said finally. "Hi," the man said, and then he disappeared. We could hear voices talking faintly, though, so we knew he wasn't alone. I figured he must be a geocacher too. Why else would he be in the roundabout median??? I thought it was weird he didn't approach, though. You have to be careful not to be caught by "Muggles"--non-geocachers. But we were clearly geocachers (still need to work on that whole stealth thing.....). Did he just want to find it himself?

We could hear voices the whole time we were there. I assumed they were just waiting for us to leave. Once we'd found the cache, we walked around so Melissa could photograph the "Provo Welcomes the World" sign. And... based on what we heard, I'm pretty sure that couple was watching a movie on a laptop in one of the dips. A strange (but definitely unique and private!) location for a date, but whatever... I wonder if they knew there was a geocache there or if they were really startled when someone else approached the median.

Anyway, we went back home, and I pulled out the cipher from the second geocache. I tried to solve it in the car, but I did the translation backwards at first, which resulted in unbearable gibberish. Melissa showed me the right way to translate it. We went back to the apartment, where Melissa sat next to me while I painstakingly deciphered it. I felt kind of bad that I was hogging it, so I tried to slow down a little a couple times and let her find the next letter, but mostly I just plugged along. I decoded most of it okay: "The upcoming year will rock! Just like you..." One word left. I thought this was a clever play on words, since we'd found it in a rock. I also thought it was an odd cipher. Melissa had said people hid this kind of thing sometimes, to lead you to another cache. But this just seemed like a generic positive phrase... I guess we can all use a little inspiration though! I wondered how long it had been there. Probably it was hidden in December, right before a new year rolled around.

There was one word left. It started with "Sh" and I could see it had three E's. "It's going to be my name," I joked. Yes, joked, because I am an idiot. I kept going and realized it was my name. But... what? That didn't make sense. Why would my name be in a random geocache cipher? "Wait... it is my name... That can't be right!" I did it again. My mind was racing (in a million wrong directions). There are other Sheleces in the world. Had we really stumbled upon a message written for another Shelece? What were the chances? Crazy.

I asked Melissa, "Will you please help me decode this last word? I keep getting my name... I guess that's just what's in my head..." Somehow she kept a completely straight face as she started helping. Meanwhile, in my head I pondered the possibility that somehow, one of my friends had hidden this for me. But how would they know we were going to that geocache? At this point I took a minute to read through the message again.

And that's when I burst out laughing. "The upcoming year will rock! Just like you Shelece."

The upcoming year... because it's almost my birthday! And Melissa knew we were going to that cache! I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. I blame my denseness and her awesome acting. I really never suspected anything (clearly)--I believed her when she wasn't quite sure where the park was. I thought it was really good luck when she started systemically searching the rocks, and stumbled across the cache on her first try. I worried a bit about taking the cipher out of the cache, but she was right that we could just bring it back later...

Hahaha... the whole thing cracks me up. :) Melissa knows I love geocaching and that I loved playing spies as a kid, so she set up my very own geocaching spy cipher adventure. It was the perfect chance to channel my inner child. I had a blast, and I'm very excited to see what else she's come up with for my birthday celebrations. She's promised me more surprises tomorrow night, and I have a feeling they'll be amazing.

Thanks Melissa!! You're the best! :D

Sombre part 2

So, I was brave and went back this morning for a hair repair. My stylist was very sweet and understanding. She dedicated two hours of her morning to fixing my hair for me--she weaved in brown to tone down the blond. I am quite happy with the results (although not with my ability to take pictures of said results).

As you can see, much MUCH more subtle. I am pleased.

The back is basically the same, though. Also.... I got so frustrated with how the pictures weren't coming out, I shot this crazy over my head angle, and guess what? It ended up being my favorite picture!

Sombre

Before:

You can laugh at my high school style selfie.

Horrible angle, I know. I took this baby with a self-timer. :) Yet, somehow I still took it in front of a mirror. Can't explain the logic there.

Dang it...  I just realized I'm wearing the shirt in these pics!!

So.... here is where I'm supposed to post the radiant new pics of me and my beautiful new sombre hair style.

Except... things didn't go as planned yesterday.

I went armed with pictures. I talked with the stylist longer than I usually do beforehand. I stressed that I wanted the end color to be pretty close to mine, that I really wanted a subtle effect. The stylist specifically asked me where I wanted the sombre color to begin, and I said the bottom of my chin.

Two and a half hours later... I was almost solidly blond. Well, the back isn't so bad. But the subtle face framing she planned to do essentially turned all the hair around my face bright honey blond. With my v-cut, when I let just a little hair fall over my shoulders... all I can see is blond. And she started it higher up than I hoped for. There's about four or five inches of my natural color at the top, followed by a couple inches of transition, and by the time you get to my ears, my hair is just plain old blond. I was hoping for the ombre to start lower down... this way I worry that it just looks like I dyed my hair blonde and then let it grow out for a few months.

I'm not really pleased with it. By the time the stylist was finished, I'd been there for two and a half hours, we were there a half an hour past closing time (of course, she started the appointment half an hour late, so that was a big part of why that happened)... and so I didn't push her to fix it right then and there. But she could tell I wasn't happy, even though I tried to be polite about it. She told me I have a week to go back and she'll fix anything I don't like. I think I'm going to be brave and take her up on that. Hopefully take 2 will go better!

And... after all this, you still want pictures, right? Okay, I will show you. It's not as bad as I'm making it sound, it's just not what I had in mind.

Hmm... Probably should have cropped that lovely arm view.

Birthday Festivities to last a whole week long

The plan: Celebrate my birthday all week long. :)

The execution: I guess you could say things started last week, when I went home for Jason's endowment and Kristie's mission call. It was great to be with my family for a few days.

On Sunday, Granny has us over for a birthday lunch (Kristie's birthday is the day after mine). We had pork chops and cherry chocolate cake. It was an excellent way to start the week.

Then, today, my ward went to Cornbelly's! It's a corn maze/mini-amusement park that only opens for the month of October. It's become a sort of yearly tradition for me. This was my fourth time going.

Obligatory roommate picture in the Cornbelly's chair! Melissa is on the left and Macie is in the middle.

Hopefully I can keep this stuff up all week! We'll see how it goes. :)

Mission Calls!!!

Our family is sending not one, but TWO missionaries out this year!

Jason got his mission call on August 14. He's going to Guadalajara Mexico, reporting to the Mexico City Missionary Training Center on November 26. (Yes, it's Spanish speaking.)

Kristie got her mission call today! She flew home so she could open it with her friends. She's going to Helsinki Finland. She reports on March 4.

I'm so proud of my siblings for devoting the next two years to serving the Lord! We will miss them very much--that will be half of the kids gone. But I know they are doing the Lord's work, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Nobody can make a puppyface like a puppy

How could anyone say no to this sweet little face?

5 Year Old Wisdom

So I flew home yesterday night, so I could be here today when Jason went through the temple in preparation for his mission.

I sat next to an adorable five year old and his mom. He started talking right away and kept me entertained all the way through the flight. His mom tried to get him to watch the old Hanna Barbara Godzilla cartoon on her Ipad (did you know that was a thing? I didn't know that was a thing) to quiet him down, I think, but he invited me to watch with him, and then he narrated every single thing that happened. The volume was turned down low, so it was hard to hear the dialogue, but fortunately he's watched it enough that he could quote most of it! It was adorable, and it made for one of my favorite flights ever.

Favorite quotes:

"I can lift two bags over my head! I can even lift a brick!"
"Look, I am tough. I can pinch myself with no ows!"
"You like me, huh?" (said adorable unassumingly big brown eyes... ah, the innocent of youth! Yes, of course I liked him)
"I can count! *successfully counts to 30, then* 45, 200, 200 million..."
"Did you know my teeth go down into my gums? Look at how sharp they are!"
"I'm going to lick your arm Mom! (to me) Sometimes I lick everything. I won't lick you, though."
"This is my man voice! I'm a real man!"
"I'm going to miss you!"

Little boy: "We live in Utah Murray! Where do you live?"
Me: "I live in Utah Provo."
Little boy: "What is that?"
Me: "It's.... uh, it's a city. It's where BYU is..."
Little boy: "B...Y...U? What's that?"
Me: "It's a school I used to go to."
Little boy: "Oh. It's like kindergarten!"
Little boy's mom: "No, honey, it's a long time after kindergarten. It's a college. College is somewhere you go when you are very smart."
Little boy: "I'm very smart!"
Little boy's mom: "Yes, you are. You're going to go to college, right?"
Little boy: "I should be in college already!"

He was great. Little kids are the best!