Take me out to the ball game

"... if they don't win it's a shame. 'Cause it's 1 - 2 - 3 strikes you're out at the old ball game!"

Last night we went to the Salt Lake Bees game courtesy of Liz's work. 4 free tickets, 4 friends, and 2nd ROW make for a great combination!

The Bees have had a great season so far. Currently, they are 33-14 and rank #1 in the PCL Pacific North League. Now, I understand this was no MLB game like the ones many of you attend in SF, Houston, etc., but hey, it's what Salt Lake has so I'm going to enjoy it! And last night we did as we watched the Bees hit about 5 home runs and win the game. It was a fun night and my friends will always keep me entertained!

And the Winner is...

David Cook!
A surprising upset! Utah native, David Archuleta, was thought to sweep American Idol, but wow, David Cook clenches the title!

Last night, Archuleta sang his heart out and it was absolutely amazing! But I must say, since a friend of mine convinced me to get sucked into this season of AI in April, I have been a fan of Cook. His sound is much more similar to the music I love and he has such and incredible ability to rearrange songs to be perfect for him. In addition, he makes this little smirk when he sings that I love!

I guess since I'm a Utah native myself, I should have just naturally been voting for Archuleta, but lets be honest... he's really young. How would he maintain his young innocence that made him so lovable if he were to win and spend the next year and a half in LA recording albums? I guess he'll probably be doing that anyway, but that will most likely change who is. I do agree that he has an incredible voice, but he's so young and his voice and image could change so drastically over the next few years. David Cook is just the more mature and substantial artist...right now. Archuleta can potentially becoming something very incredible when he's a little bit older.

More than anything, I will be interested to watch as Archuleta ages and makes a decision to serve an LDS mission or not, and how the media reacts to it. He has been such a role model thus far, that I'm sure the media will talk something about it if/when that time comes.

This year's AI contestants were very talented. I am very happy with the results of tonight and the overall fact that it came down to David and David. Go David!

Me

In Relief Society, we pass around the "Friendship Basket." Every week someone has to fill the basket with stuff that represents them in some way. Then at the end of RS, that person gets up, talks about the items and why they picked them, and then we draw names to see who gets the goodies in the basket and ultimately will fill it with stuff about themselves for the next week. Today I got to talk about me!

Disclaimer: I had a busy week and kind of forgot about it until last night at 10:30pm, so the only place that was still open to buy the stuff was Walmart. It is mostly food, but let's be honest, I love food so it doesn't matter!

• Water Balloons - every summer for a family reunion, we play water balloon volleyball and I love it. Plus, summer is my all-time favorite season!
• Pens & White Out - I always write in pen which means I almost always need white out.
• Hershey's Chocolate Bar - I come from a long long line of recovering chocoholics
• Skittles - I used to get my 3 o'clock sugar rush at work with a handful of skittles, but now I'm supposed be doing this Biggest Loser challenge with some girls at work, so no more. Tear
• 3 Muskateers MINT - love it!
• Extra Polar Ice gum and Stride Spearmint gum - I only chew Extra, but a friend convinced me to try Stride. I found it made my jaw sore because it gets too hard when I chew it. So I put in my favorite gum, and also the Stride since I had an extra package.
• Almond Extract & Recipe - my family has a favorite recipe for Chestenhache, a Swedish almond cake. It's super easy to make and very delicious. I put a bottle of the almond extract in the basket since its the most unique ingredient. I even made some Chestenhache this morning so the girl who got my basket could taste it fresh!
• Olay daily moisturizing sun screen - my favorite for summer and can act as the daily moisturizer on your face. It's just perfect!

So that was me in a nutshell. There is definitely more to me, but not that I could find at Walmart late last night. Oh well, it was fun to think about!

In Memory of Grandma Wray

I had the opportunity yesterday to run the Race for the Cure 5K. It was a very last minute decision--literally the hour before when my sister called to tell me she had an extra entry since her husband was unable to run it that morning. I was just waking up, but since my Grandma passed away from breast cancer in January 2005, and it runs in her family, I thought it would be the best way to start my day.

It was very inspiring to see so many Utahns (and maybe others) who ran the 5k or walked the 1 mile route. Each participant is given the opportunity to pin a pink paper on their back that says "In memory of..." or "In celebration on..." and as we ran, it was cool so see who everyone knew who fought the battle of breast cancer.

If you look closely, you see how the street is filled with people as far as you can even see the street. This race was so packed, it took us nearly 5 minutes just to cross the starting line!

On a lighter note, we also enjoyed the shirts that were made with light-hearted sayings. I guess if I was facing breast cancer, I would want to be as light-hearted as possible and what better way to do it than joke about it. Some of the funnier sayings were, "Christi's Rack Pack, " or " Save the Ta Tas." Haha, I love it!

This will probably be something I do again each year. 3.1 miles isn't too far, I want to be in good enough shape to always be able to run it and Race for the Cure!After the race. By the way, my shirt was not my size since I didn't get to pick the size myself.

Stretching after the race. Definitely post-run AND morning looks put together. Man, I was smokin' hot! Hahaha!

In Case You Missed It...

On Friday, my former roommate finally got married! This leaves me as the sole remaining roommate from my freshman year in college to get married... and I've got plenty of time before I take that step! Because of various reasons, none of our other roommates were able to attend so I'm posting plenty of pictures for them to feel like they were there! Congrats Alison and Jake!

Rookie Golfer

I golfed for the very first time last Saturday!

Don't laugh, I know I look like I'm going to whack the center out of the ball, but thats just due to lack of instruction. It reminds me of Billy Madison. Thankfully, my friends weren't too far from my skill level. Kiley was playing her first game too, Brayden is still fairly new, but much more experience than Kiley and me, and poor James had to teach us all during the whole afternoon!

I think we may have had more fun laughing at our inabilities than actually swinging our clubs. One comical moment was on hole 7. Kiley had been telling us about her greatest fear since hole 1 - that she would be hit in the head by a golf ball. Surprisingly at hole 7, she was sitting in the cart safely awaiting her turn, and sure enough she was hit in the hip by a ball that strayed from the neighboring fairway! The other golfers yelled "fore", but we were chatting and didn't hear it... I guess that fear has been conquered! Haha!

I would like to thank my friend Jason for taking me to the driving range a couple times last summer. Because of his patience last year, I hit a 64 on a 9-hole game. Not amazing, but good enough that James had a hard time believing it was my first game. I think I'll have to keep it up. See you on the golf course!

Monkeying Around

A couple weeks ago, the company I work for did a big event where the theme chosen by the client was "Toucan Do It". The Sheraton Hotel was transformed into a jungle for about a week. One evening I was asked to go down and help set up for the dinner because the transition time what so short, while there I made a sweet new friend...Yes, he is real. He even tipped his hat to me, and at one point we were staring face to face about 4" from each other! That was definitely an experience to remember!