Don't you test these besties.

(I can't seem to stop quoting the Harvard Sailing Team Boys Will Be Girls video. I'll post it at the bottom. You should just see it. Really. Chalk it up to cultural literacy.)

In the past few weeks our lives have been the best kind of topsy turvy, and it all began (and this post will end with) a visit from my cousin/sister-from-another-mother, with whom I lived in college for two years and with whom I also shared pounds and pounds of bridge mix during my BYU days, who was a bridesmaid in my wedding and is one of the best people I've ever known. She came out to PA to see me and to celebrate her golden birthday. Needless to say, I was counting down the days until her arrival for months in advance.



Here we are in our undergrad days. Head lamps and night bike rides. Typical.

Just after Harry and I had picked her up from the airport, our incessant chattering/holler-style laughing began, and Harry gave me a knowing look that said, "Oh yeah. Now I remember what it was like when you two lived together."

We spent the weekend galavanting, eating, laughing, talking, planning, nostalgia-inducing, and in the words of Sense and Sensibility's Mrs. Jennings, "tasting the delights of the season!"

This included:

-Stanford Shopping Center (and all it's diversions!)
-Menlo Park Goodwill Boutique (Anthropologie belt for a fifth of the price? Don't mind if I do!)
-See's chocolates (at 10:30 am, no less)
-Sprinkles cupcakes (key lime zest IN THE FROSTING)
-Cheese House (roast beef + egg bread + house spread)
-Three episodes of "Lost" (Desmond, we love you)
-Swimming at a delicious swimming pool with fantastic friends (laughed so hard I started coughing uncontrollably)
-Darbar Indian cuisine with cousins/friends/lovers (I loved me some Saag)
-More cupcakes (this time with lit candles)
-Endless youtube videos ("Poor him some malk, Josh!")
-Going on a 5 mile run that happened to have a halfway point at Grandma and Grandpa's old house (we stood outside and took pictures like stalkers)
-Getting 1/2 off at Pinkberry during happy hour (I've never been so excited to spend $2.25 on yogurt)
-Delicious dinner at cousin Kate's house with her delightful and adorable brood, of which I have no pictures (we both have closet fears that our children will never be as cute as our nieces and nephews. Thanks a lot, siblings/cousins).













Note: We also recently moved into a new apartment, though calling it "new" is actually the fattest lie I've ever told. There was an issue with our original academic year lease that could not be renewed. I'll spare you the frustrating details. Luckily we're learning to love it. I'm learning that washing dishes by hand is super fun, and that our prison style bathroom has this very Dungeons and Dragons-esque charm about it, and our mattress has a nice dip carved out in it just big enough for me! And best of all... this apartment is what I'm calling my "third world experience." Who needs the Peace Corps? I'm living it right now, friends.

Bad jokes aside, we had the best weekend. I'll spare you the speech about how much I love the people in my family/life, because once I start I find that I've written paragraphs and have to pare it all down to a few sentences (and why do something that resembles homework if you don't have to?). Suffice it to say, heaven itself wouldn't be complete without them. And I'm so happy I got to help my cousin ring in her 24th birthday on the 24th.

And now, without further ado... the video I cannot stop watching....