Burn out! Burn out!

(Sung to the tune of Ludacris's "Roll Out," if you wondered.) I got a little burned out on my getting-to-know-yous. Probably because I write so much about each person. But, I'm back in the game, for now anyway.

• Jen and I go way back. Her grandparents were in my ward growing up, and I think her parents were too for a little while. I'm assuming that's why I remember playing with her a lot when we were really little. At any rate they moved away when we were still little but always came back to visit at least once a year. Now she is married and it looks like Chicago is beating out the other honeymoon candidates.
• JennRose and I also go way back, not quite as far though. Back to high school. I promise this is not the only funny thing that ever happened with her, but my favorite memory is still when we went to see Spice World at the old Mann 6 that is now, I think, a Bed Bath & Beyond or maybe a furniture store . . . or a pet store? Anyway, it was funny. Whenever I see obnoxious, loud teenage girls, I think of us and what we must have looked like then.
• Jen was my visiting teacher when we very, very first moved in and let me tell you, she was a good one. We had Christmas Eve at their house, and I also recall some delicious food she brought me when Theo was born. I still need to get that chicken parmigiana recipe . . . oh and the pumpkin cheesecake. She and her husband love Star Wars (did I say love? I meant love) and I think they should name their next baby Luke. It's just my opinion.
• Jessica is, I'm not going to lie, one of my favorite people ever. She probably won't even read this because she's off gallivanting with some of her many friends and family in Utah. I don't know if I know anyone with more friends, or more family. Her husband and Matt went to high school together and lived together in college, and the four of us and our stuff shared a truck on our way out to VA almost 2 years ago. She works wonders with my hair and I couldn't be more thrilled that she is pregnant and that our babies are due within a week of each other!
• jessi is a friend of Phoebe's with some sweet craftiness on her blog and etsy shop. I have checked her shop a zillion times and come so close to buying stuff from her. One of these days I am just going to do it. I do need another bag! I do! I love reading crafty people's blogs because it inspires me to be crafty myself. Or at the very least to buy other people's handmade things.
  
• Jacob and I also go way back, because he is my cousin, another one of that nine I keep talking about. Favorite Jacob story--well, second favorite, I won't share the first favorite because it's not blogging material but it had to do with my roommate--is when I had just moved in to my freshman dorm, a week early, and almost no one else was there yet. He came and took me to a movie--let me be more specific, he took me to a double feature of Space Cowboys and What Lies Beneath, and it was in fact a drive-in, and he did in fact enlist me to help move his couch into the bed of his huge truck before we went to the movie. Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny. I was fortunate enough to spend a whole lot of time with Jacob, Peter, and Hester that year. Seriously . . . that was a fun year.
• Joy: The first time I met Joy was in our seventh-grade algebra class. Our teacher was Mr. Pumphrey (anyone else here have him? wow) and I remember she called him Mr. Thumbphrey. Not sure why but we were friends from that moment on. Her house was a gathering place in middle school and high school . . . I miss their mini-pool and hot tub. She was one of my very best friends during that time. I love my funny friends! She was a cheerleader and married her high school sweetheart, a football player. Don't you love that that still happens? Now she is a nurse and they have a little girl.
• traci is yet another cousin. I don't think I'd have half my blog readers if I didn't have so many blogging cousins. She and her husband and four cute kids actually don't live too far from us . . . well, a few states away but what's a few states between cousins? One of these days we will make it back to Indiana (the last time was 5 years ago and we got a speeding ticket there. The cop was mean.) and get to know her kids. Traci is one of the nicest people I know.
• Nicole is one of the original bloggers. My friendship with her is unique because I count her as one of my closest friends, and yet we have only hung out in real life a handful of times. We went to neighboring high schools and lived in the same stake, and had some friends in common, and yet we never really became friends ourselves until after high school. We both lived in Provo for a time, then it was back to California for her, where we hit up a couple of John Mayer concerts together. I think John Mayer was how we truly bonded. Oh, Johnny. Now she is married and I hope someday I will meet her husband!
• Kacy: Even if you don't know Kacy you may have read her blog. She is blog-famous, not only because she knows a lot of movers and shakers but also because she is a writer and therefore her blog is fun to read. I first met Kacy when I was, maybe, fourteen? When she was finishing up her thesis I used to go over to her house and feed her son macaroni and cheese while watching Blue's Clues. Also I watched Carson Daly (He must have been napping when I watched Carson Daly). This was the first I'd ever heard of Blue's Clues, and I just remembered randomly that one day while watching MTV at Kacy's house I saw Britney Spears's first video. I thought, "This is totally dumb and will never take off." None of this really has anything to do with Kacy but I think she would like it that way. Read her blog; you'll wish you could say, as I can, that you knew her when.