Brown's Business

So let's go back to 1996.

I'm a Freshman at BYU.

I'm living in Helaman Halls in David John Hall.

My dorm is on the 2100 floor.

I'm assigned to the Honors floor- keep your thoughts to yourself!

I'm assigned to the QUIET floor- I know, Honors floor makes sense- hehe, but the quiet floor, what the CRAP!!

Now, let's climb the stairs 1 floor and there your enter the PARTY floor- the 3100 girls.

I was ADOPTED!!

The end.

Seriously, 3100 was where it was at! Even though I slept on the 2100 floor, my closest friends came from the girls that were above me. In 2007 we decided we needed to start a Girls Trip. We have been to NYC, CA, and a few weeks ago we hit up Vegas with Hudson in tow. It was non-stop awesomeness! Our hostess with the mostess Miss Amberli posted the most fantastic blog recapping all the fun. I can't try to mimic how perfect her post is, so I've copied and paste it to my post.

ENJOY. . .

{las vegas girls trip 2011}
'tis quite unlikely that the magnificence can be summed up in one measly little blog post, but let's give it a shot...

three years ago these lovely ladies (plus likely, of course. we missed you!) held the first ever john hall (freshman dorm @ BYU) reunion in NYC. it was dreamy and wonderful and simply had to be repeated yearly. so last year reunion #2 was in CA, which sadly i had to miss due to a family wedding. well, this year as soon as our family left after thanksgiving and my house was feeling so lonely, i emailed these chickies and invited them to LV for our third girls trip. within 27 seconds they had all emailed back, the dates were chosen and the anticipation was soaring. well, only a few times in life can you say you've had the perfect weekend but this, my friends, was indeed the perfect weekend.
let's recap the goodness...

thursday was spent running to and from the airport as everyone arrived. each arrival was a screaming hugging i-love-you-ing fest. i even almost got a lame parking ticket while i was reunioning with amy at the passanger pick-up at the airport. ticket writing guy did not care that we were celebrating the kick off of the best weekend ever. we had dinner at the elephant bar thursday night then stayed up until 2 chatting as if we hadn't seen each other all year, cuz we hadn't.

we kicked off friday morning with some serious shopping. then we went shopping. we also spent a lot of time shopping. friday night we got all gussied up and headed downtown to see the cirque du soleil show KA at MGM. i am totally exaggeration-less when i say it was incredible. like my jaw was hanging open to the floor in amazement the entire time and i kept saying "WOW!" and maybe even "holy crap" out loud. i can't even really describe it in a way that you'd understand how cool it is but just know that people are flying here and there and everywhere and there is a buff tarzan with nakey buns that sparkles like edward.

all the ladies at KA

in front of the KA sign
and yes, i rocked the hat on KA night

above: me from LV, amy from TX, allison from AZ, melissa from CA (hosted last year's reunion), megan from CO, trisha from AZ, shauna from CO, mehrsa from UT (but originally from NYC and hosted our first reunion), jojo from FL, and jenny from the freezing land of MN.

all gussied and posing on the staircase pretending it's prom night
i'll also just make quick mention of our crazy prom-esque dress trying on that we did later that night downtown.
we even took pictures of the fiasco. but the pictures have been entered into the "for our eyes only" archives
of the john hall girls trip sisterhood so you shant be seeing them here.
but it was funny. and we are funny. and you'll just have to take my word for it.

jenny and melissa sparkling

and i don't really remember what was happening here
but apparently amy and i thought it was pretty funny

melissa, who is the very queen of making magic happen, schmoozed the door guy at studio 54 and got us in for free
for some wild let's-pretend-like-we're-18-and-at-the-omni dancing.
it was a flashback of the very best kind.

but first we had to take a little stroll down the strip to ross for some dancable shoes for the crazy high heel wear-ers
and some t-shirts for the crazy sweater wear-ers.
and naturally had to pose for yet another picture on our way.

then we partied it up like it was 1996 at studio 54

dancing

you get the picture. lots of dancing happened.

and i won't mention how even tho we had the most fun ever dancing we were all like "oh my aching back" and "man, i'm so old" afterwards. but it was a blast and the aching back was worth it! and we retired to our comfy beds at the ripe hour of 3:30 in the AM after more chatting and treating.

~ spa day ~
ahhhhhh...spa day

saturday was spa day. we got a spa suite (that's right, i said SPA SUITE) at the cosmopolitan for the afternoon where we were the happy and grateful recipients of all manner of spa treatments. now, once upon a time i would have maybe said something ridiculous like "i'm not really a spa-type girl" but then i birthed two babies and aged ten years and yes! i am in all actuality a real live spa girl.
and luckily so are all my girlfriends.

and needless to say, but i'll say it anyway
it was of course melissa's mad magic-making skills that made spa day so successful
THANK YOU!

(and sidenote: it was also melissa's mad magic-making skills that got us to KA on time,
but i'll leave the going 100 mph weaving through traffic on the strip details to your imaginations)

the sahara spa suite

so then it was all mani-pedi-facial-massage galore for four hours. not to mention the whirl pool, hot tub, steam room, sauna, and shower-that-dumped-water-right-out-of-the-ceiling-and-sprayed-it-at-me-from-all-directions goodness. and the yummy food and don't forget the hanging out with 9 of your best friends part. now, i'm not a fan of the whole be jealous of my life blog craze, but feel free to be jealous this time around because it was jealous-making heaven!

jo and jenny

megan

amy and allie

more jenny

and a special note of gratitude - the girls picked up the tab for my hour long massage.
pure bliss. it perhaps brings tears of joy to my eyes just thinking about it.
THANK YOU girls! it was so so very needed and appreciated!

naturally all the relaxing and pampering really works up a girl's appetite
so after some casino/strip exploring it was dinner at the wicked spoon buffet at the cosmopolitan

and as you can imagine the food was wicked good
i mean like incredible crepes in melted brown sugar and buttery caramel wicked good

especially the dessert
yes, please!

more sauntering around the cosmo, checking out the chandelier

saturday night we stayed up until 2 or 3 or 4 or something once again chatting like we weren't going to see each other for another year, cuz we won't, and looking through old photos from college. it was hilarious and scary and great and tender all rolled into one.

half of the ladies had to leave sunday morning but jenny, shauna, trisha and allison all came to church with me so i had my own personal fan section cheering me on when i had to run up onto the stand in hot pursuit of my crazy three year old, which was pretty rad. jenny also wins the super rock star, all american champion, MVP and whatever else means totally awesome award for taking atticus during primary while i tap danced to entertain the kids. there was a ruckus. it wasn't easy. but amen for having jenny there to help. i heart you jenny, thank you!

and while i'm tossing around thank you's i must shout one out to all the girls for coming and making the perfect weekend perfect. and especially to jenny, shauna, allison and trisha for totally spic and spanning my whole house before they left sunday night. for real! we're talking laundry, dishes, scrubbing the bathrooms, cooking dinner, mopping, folding, putting away and everything else-ing that i hate to do. it's quite possible my house was cleaner upon their departure then their arrival. the real cherry on top of the cake, no?

and last but not least
THANK YOU
to the hub!

who took friday off work so i could get my shop on with the girls. and not only did dad duty FULL time all weekend but did babysitter duty to shauna's newborn friday night so we could see KA. and was super sleep deprived because the boys slept in our room with us plus beck felt the need to celebrate girls weekend by growing teeth and sporting a cold, not to mention we were so loud and crazy until the wee hours that there just was not much sleep to be had by the males in the house. and darek got up in the morning with the boys so i could get 4 instead of only 3 hours of sleep each night. and he didn't even bat an eye at the "we're going shopping and i'm spending money" shinanigans. and he watched TV in the playroom with his head phones on so we could continue our very graphic girl chatting all night long (you wouldn't believe not only the topics we covered but the details we shared. also archived away.) needless to say, he took the weekend like a champ, in typical darek fashion and i am the luckiest of all lucky girls for being married to the mister.

and for having the best girlfriends ever!
i love you ladies

can't wait until next year
T minus 363 days...

.ta.

Told you, the perfect post by AMBERLI!!

I don't know how else to describe it, but it was NUTS-O around here. Doug had to go out of town for work for about 2 weeks when Hudson was about 2 weeks old, so my Super Mom came for reinforcements. I don't know what was going around in our house but Jaden was rather difficult, to put it lightly. Obviously, things were different with a new baby, a tired Mom, a gone Dad, and a Grandma helping call the shots, but man, it was NOT fun. Thank goodness it's been about a month since all of that so I can blog the positive highlights.

Hudson is the ultimate snuggler and we can't get enough. He loved cuddling up to my Mom and catching a few ZZZZZs amongst the craziness (about 3 weeks old).

We had some great weather so we hit the trails with all the kiddos. Hudson is all snuggled up in the jogger. I promise Jaden isn't squishing him.

This is how I would find our living room- a tea party, block building, and a newborn amongst it all. Can you find Hudson?

My Dad flew in for Hudson's Blessing weekend. We wanted to go bowling but the wait was FOREVER so we played in the arcade instead.

Bradli was quite the pro, punching down all of the ducks.

If you know my Mom, you know she doesn't mess around when it comes to Skee Ball. I think she developed the skill from her bowling pro boyfriend at BYU. Too bad Roger stole her heart, otherwise we might be a family that hung at the Bowling Alley sporting wrist guards and sweet bowling shirts.

After all the Skee Ball we could afford, we cruised the Mall for a bit. I can honestly say this was probably the 3rd time I have ever been to the Mall with my Dad. For being from a family of 5 girls, my Dad was able to avoid it. The one memory I do have was the day before 7th grade I needed a pair of jean shorts. My Dad sat out in front of Contempo Casuals (come on, you remember that store) while I found some very stylish shorts to hit Newhart Junior High looking good! Excuse the random tangent.

Bradli wishes she could live in Pottery Barn Kids. Go ahead, make yourself comfortable.

**Please excuse my unwashed, too short banged hair- ugh**

Anyways, enough of my vain-ness (so not a word). Hudson's baby blessing was just wonderful. I really don't think it could be described any other way. Doug was inspired and our little Hudson is one special little guy.

It meant so much to have both sets of Grandparents there for Hudson.

We invited our very special neighbors the Quezadas to share our special day with us. They have become some of our dearest friends and they can relate to the craziness- just look at Miss B.

Not the best pic of some of the spread but I had to showcase the amazing bread bowls my other neighbor Jennifer made. They were to die for!! My Mom and I made homemade soups. I made Chicken and Wild Rice and my Mom mimicked the most amazing soup we had from the White Chocolate Grill- Tomato Gin Soup (minus the gin). It was beyond mouth watering with fire roasted tomatoes, bacon, portobello mushrooms, and cream. No pic- dang it!!