Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

...when the workin' day is done

When I first got to Utah, Ellen, Tracey, and I talked about going to Vegas for our annual trek. We couldn't come up with a weekend that would work, so we decided to stay overnight in Salt Lake. Ellen was in charge of getting the hotel. I was in charge of finding an "event". Tracey was just in charge of showing up (we don't trust her). I found out that Ingrid Michaelson, who was at the Music Cafe this year at Sundance, and Ellen and I both really like, was coming to the Avalon in Salt Lake. Ellen got the hotel, and everything was in order with lots of "Yeah, that sounds so great!" and "No, I really don't have anything going on that weekend" and "sure we can meet at 1:00 to get pedicures before we go".
On Saturday morning, we had the usual round of:

Oh... wait. I forgot I have a race this morning.
I' m watching my friend's kids.
I haven't even gotten in the shower yet.
My shirt got dirty and I'm already out,can you bring me one?
I forgot my camera.
You guys just go, and I'll meet you after the pedicures.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

At about 3:30, we were on our way. We all ended up with pedicures and a recommendation for a great Vietnamese restaurant. After we ate, we went to the hotel, laid around, and took pictures of our feet.

Tracey has freakishly tiny toenails. The lady had to paint part of her skin on her pinky toe because it was too small for the brush.

We talked about going to the pool, but it was only talk.

... the one to walk in the sun

At about 6:30, we headed out to the Avalon theatre. Yikes. What a dive. We used to go to the hypnotist shows there in high school, and it was a dive then. If I was just passing by, I would assume it was abandoned... broken windows, broken signs, chunks of concrete missing, but no... it's still up and running. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30, and the show was supposed to start at 7:00. Not even close. While we were waiting in line, I went inside to ask what the deal was with the line, and heard them doing a sound check. I could hear Greg Laswell, who was at the Music Cafe 2 years ago, and asked if he was also playing the show. Yep. Now I had motiviation to go wait outside in the 100 degree heat. We waited until about 7:30. Finally, they opened the doors and let us into the refreshingly cool building.... We wished. Like I said, this building was old. They had one fan on stage and a big fan in the back, and a couple hundred human heaters walking around the cramped, unventilated building. Not so much fun. But, the concert was.

This was right when we got there. We aren't too melted yet. You can kind of see what a mess this place is.

In keeping with my theme of posting terrible pictures of myself, I thought I'd add this one of me and our new friend (see below). No good, right? There are a couple factors at play here. Ellen has a fancy camera that flashes about 8 times before it takes the real picture in order to get it to focus in the dark, and when it flashes, it's BRIGHT. My eyes are saying, "come on, already... Ouch! That's bright!" Also, I thought about editing the shiny faces, but I really cannot emphasize enough how hot it was.

This is a more normal version.

We think these 2 are in LOVE. They sang "Can't Help Falling in Love" as the final song and... well, it looked like they meant it.

...take a beautiful girl
While we were in line outside, we met Gabriella from High School Musical. She was a doll. Actually, her name was Daniella, but, she looked just like Gabriella and we adopted her for the night because she was there by herself. I think she was happy at first, but maybe not so much after she realized what she had gotten herself into. Poor, poor girl. She must have liked us enough, though, because she came out to dinner with us after the show. (I know, second dinner. Give us a break. We don't get out much). We went to Iggy's Sports Bar because it was open... but, just barely. We were the only people in the restaurant and they were cleaning up all around us. The manager even came out to hurry us along right after we got our food by asking us if we had gotten our check yet. We ate quick, said good bye to Vanessa Hudgens, and headed back to the hotel. On the way, we started talking about our knack for picking up strays. And I mean stray in the nicest possible way. Some of them turn out to be great friends... Mike, for example. Some of them, we may have been better off leaving well enough alone... Bethany, according to Ellen (although I should remind her, Bethany was Ellen's find, and I still think she's great). But when we look back at pictures from everything we've done, there is almost always someone new joining us. As Ellen put it so eloquently, "we have just touched so many lives." So, true, my friend. So, true.

...hide her away from the rest of the world

When we got to the hotel, we decided to check to see if the pool was open. We let Tracey out to read the pool hours sign, and Ellen uttered the ever fateful line that always begins our long nights of running through hotel corridors, getting lost in the Venetian canals, leaving me stranded in Las Vegas elevators, and, at least in this case, having Tracey ride through a parking garage holding onto the back of my car:

"Let's ditch her."


You got it. I drove away. We laughed and laughed. It never gets old!




...phone rings in the middle of the night

We got back to the hotel room, looked around, and decided to take a walk around the hotel. We got about 2 minutes into our walk, and Tracey decided to rattle the door on which a "Privacy Please" sign hung. Ellen and I took off. We assumed Tracey would follow. We kept walking thinking we would eventually run into her, but instead we ran into a grand piano. I decided to play. Ellen decided to sing. Ellen called Tracey's cell phone (but first dialed a wrong number... it was 1:00 AM), and found her back at the room. We told her to follow the music. She did. Ellen put on quite a show. Her moving lyrics and the look of yearning on her face made for an exciting night, I'm sure, for the cleaning crew. Man, we're funny. I really wish there was a way to record this stuff, but it just happens, you know? You can't plan it. We walked around looking through the windows of the gift shops, and started heading back to the room. Ellen found some note pads and pens, and decided to start writing notes to put under people's doors such as, "I missed you tonight. Call me tomorrow. I love you. Love, Stephanie". I took that one away, but she did leave a "Sunday Services - 10:00 AM 3180 S 600 E" under a door. That really isn't that funny right now, but at 2:00 this morning, it was hee-larious. We got back to the hotel room, and the shenanegans began. There was lots of hiding people's books in drawers, making Tracey a bed on the floor, hiding ice buckets and glasses in people's bags. I bet Tracey never found the "This is a Non Smoking room" sign in her purse. Go ahead and look, Tracey. It's there. We finally fell asleep at about 2:30. Someone was talking in their sleep and kept me awake. Ellen's phone rang at 5:30 AM. Wrong number. That's what we get, I guess.

...came home in the morning light

We went to a breakfast buffet at Little America, ate as much as we possibly could, and headed home. I made it home in time to go to my mom's sacrament meeting, but left afterward and came home and took a 3 hour nap. I feel lazy, but happy as can be.