A (Semi) Successful Day at Sundance

It's no secret that my family loves celebrities and we jump on the chance to star gaze so today Emily and I along with our friend Liz took advantage of our day off and went up to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. It just so happened that John Krasinki's movie premiered today as well. Was it fate? I think so. We weren't going to the movie because we knew it wasn't really our kind of movie (if you know what I mean), but we were so determined to meet him and get our picture taken with him. We went to the theater and we actually saw him arrive and walk into the theater. It was super exciting to see him! He is just as adorable in person as he is on tv. We didn't get to actually meet him or get a picture with him, but Em did yell out, "John we love you!" And he smiled and said, "Aww thanks." It was cute. So they basically had a conversation. Amidst all of the excitement of trying to catch a glimpse of him I was able to get a couple decent pictures.

Although we weren't able to get a picture with Jim Halpert, we were however able to get our picture taken with none other than Mr. Andrew Bernard, Ed Helms himself. He was actually super nice. So all in all, this years Sundance experience was great! Check out Em's blog for more info.

The Evolution of Audrey's Bangs

This post is dedicated to my best friend Tiff. We went through the drama and heartache of the bad hair phases together. She has stuck with me through all of my bad hair days and bad hair years. She and I have done extensive studies on the evolution of my bangs and today I would like to share just a few of those stages with you. In doing so, I realize I am exposing myself to ridicule, but for informational and, most importantly, entertainment purposes I will take one for the team and share these pictures with you.
When we are younger we can get away with the disheveled look. Mom would just throw some curlers in my hair and let it go however it wanted. Really, at this age, who cares!













But then comes the awkward years. For me, the "awkward years" lasted the majority of my life. Rough times mostly do to my horrible bangs. There comes a time in your life where you feel the need to be stylish and I guess at one point these next bangs were stylish...or maybe not. Try to look past my buck teeth and huge glasses and focus on my bangs. As if you could miss them! They're huge! Tiff and I called these my "Ker-splat Bangs" because it looks like somebody just took a handful of hair and through it at my forehead and it just went everywhere. I think these bangs put the Utah Claw to shame.

Now I don't really remember how I finally toned down the huge bangs, but these next ones really aren't much better. Again, try to look past the teeth and the glasses and the "I think I just pee'd my pants" look on my face and focus on the bangs. In sixth grade Tiff and I decided we both wanted to get perms. Of course! Who doesn't want matching perms?! I already have some natural curl in my hair so perming it just makes the curls tighter, thus creating what we like to call "Weenie Bangs." This bang stage is a favorite among my family and friends.
In Junior High my awkward phase hit an all-time high or should I say low?! Does anyone else think that Junior High is the most miserable time in a person's life and should be done away with completely? Or perhaps it isn't as miserable for someone who doesn't have bangs, but for us poor unfortunate bang people it sucks! In eighth grade I just didn't know what to do with them anymore. I think they looked different everyday and I was really wanting to phase them out so somedays I would have less bangs than others. We called these bangs "Rat's nest Bangs" because who knows what the heck is living in there. Disgusting!
In eighth grade Tiff and I were determined to get rid of our bangs together, but we knew we couldn't just do it in the middle of the school year. That would just be weird! So on the last day of school the first thing we both did was go home, break out the bobby pins and pull those bangs to the side. We spent all summer growing them out and I started ninth grade looking like this. Isn't my forehead refreshing?
I was half way there. In high school I finally wised up and got rid of the glasses too. Look, I have a face!
And so after all the drama and suffering caused by years of bangs and the courage and determination to get rid of them, this is Tiff and me today.
If anyone sees me start to rat anything stop me immediately before it's too late!

The things I do for David...

As most of you probably know I have a little obsession with David Archuleta. So on Christmas Eve when I was reading my daily dose of news on David I freaked out when I found out he would be performing at the McKay Events Center in Orem, Utah for New Years Eve. The article in the Mormon Times stated this "David Archuleta, Rockapella, Osmonds 2nd Generation, Noteworthy and V-Factory will perform New Year's Eve at the David O. McKay Events Center in Orem, Utah. 'David is appearing as a favor for the Osmonds,' he said. 'It's like what he did for the Osmonds 2nd Generation Christmas concert a few days ago.'" The article then goes on to talk about how after the Osmonds/Rockapella concert there will be a dance where Ashely and David will return to perform again. So from reading this article you would think, Oh David will be performing at both events! I went directly to smithtix.com and bought tickets to the Osmond/Rockapella concert for me, my parents, Audrey and Emily. Since all of us wanted to see David perform I thought this event would be more family friendly than the hoochy UVU New Years Eve dance, cause we all know how UVU dances go down...yikes! Well the next day I had this feeling I should double check our tickets and as I was scoping things out I realized at smithtix.com David Archuleta's name was only on the New Years Eve Dance. I then started to panic! Did I get the wrong tickets??? I tried calling the ticket office but of course since it was the day after Christmas they were closed and wouldn't be open until Monday. So I had to stress about this ALL weekend! It was painful believe me. I tried finding other sources online that might know what was going on. Everywhere I read said David would be at both events so this calmed me down a bit. The Osmond Second Generation was on Fox 13 news as well as 2 news promoting the New Years Eve concert and so I was like sweet maybe I will find out some more info! David Osmond announced that David Archuleta would be performing a few songs with them at the concert. I thought phew I must have the right tickets then. Well when Monday morning rolled around the first thing I do when I roll out of bed is call the ticket office to double check about the tickets. The mean lady told me, "NO, David will not be performing with the Osmonds. He will only be at the Dance!" I think she must have been bombarded with phone calls that morning with other concerned Archie fans. She wasn't the friendliest haha. Even though I was peeved that I was tricked into buying the wrong tickets I just decided it was worth it to buy tickets to the dance as well. That was the only way I was going to be able to see David. On New Years Eve Day I had a schedule planned out for us to follow. I didn't want any chance of things going wrong. We left the house at 2:30 pm for Orem. First we stopped at the ticket office to pick up our tickets for the Osmond/Rockapella concert and Audrey, Emily and I bought our tickets for the dance with David. Then we headed to Provo where we ate lunch/dinner at Los Hermanos which is one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.
At this point things were going very smoothly. We got parking right in front at the restaurant, which never happens, and the food was great! I thought this must be a good omen for the rest of the night. After dinner we had about an hour to spare before the doors opened for the general admission concert so of course Emily insisted we waste some time at Ross. I think everyone could tell I was a bit anxious to get to the concert so we then left Ross and headed on over to UVU. I was told that doors opened at 6 and we got there at about 5:50, so we were like perfect we will only have to wait out in the cold for like 10 minutes. But UVU having been falsey advertising everything got that wrong too and we ended up going in at 6:30. We were all pretty much frozen by then and a little annoyed. But we ended up getting pretty good seats despite the fact that there were like 1o rows of reserved seats for VIP, which was another thing that peeved me. So we were on like row 13. Third row to the public, not bad I guess. I wasn't stoked for this concert but I put on my best attitude and it actually turned out to be really fun! Before the concert started the MC announced that since there had been so many misunderstandings and complaints about whether or not David Archuleta was going to be at the concert they would give a $5 discount to those that wanted to go to the dance if we showed our concert ticket stub when we bought our ticket. I don't think this made people much happier but the concert continued. The Osmonds were as cheesy as ever but David Osmond was great to look at.
I had never seen Rockapella in concert before so I didn't know what to expect but they were actually really entertaining and had some good songs. The brown sugar base man was my favorite. His low voice and dance moves were so sexy :) hehe. My favorite part of their show was when they sang the "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" song. Do it Rockapella!! It was then time for the Dance. We had to exit the building to just go outside to wait in line in the cold yet again. Our place in line wasn't too shabby but then we were informed by stupid UVU that our ticket wasn't good enough to get into the concert so we had to go to the ticket office again to trade our ticket for a wrist band. By this point I was ready to punch someone in the face. I was so ticked at UVU for being so disorganized and for giving us all a run around. But I did what I was told. When we came back to get in line, the line had grown so now we were basically at the end. Cool cool right? I was able to get over it pretty fast because I knew I would be seeing David soon and it would all be worth it. Emily and Audrey however were pretty mad and I don't think they ever got happy again the rest of the night, in fact I think they got even more mad. Sorry guys... Even though I wasn't the first person in, I some how managed to work my way to the front so I was like a foot from the stage. I was then very happy :) They called this event the Nephoria New Years Eve Dance but no one was really dancing cause we were all packed as tightly as possibly towards the stage so no one could really move. So instead of us dancing we watched some kids dance on stage for about 2 1/2 hours too long. I pretty much had all their dances moves memorized by the end. Then out of no where they decided to have a fashion show in the middle of the crowd. Yeah that was ridiculous! No one came to see a fashion show peeps and they were trying to split the crowd in half so the models could walk down the center which was even more obnoxious. Oh UVU...freakin geniues! But then after the long, obnoxious, stressful day, it had finally reached 11:50 and they brought David Archuleta out. The crowd went wild. I basically jumped on the girls shoulders in front of me...but it's all good, we became good friends haha. David's 2 performaces, "A Little Too Not Over You" and "Crush" were flawless!! I was belting them out and trying to take everything in. It was over so fast but those 10 minutes with David were worth every ounce of stress and penny spent! Yes I paid $45 to see David perform for 10 minutes but I would do it again in a heart beat! I do apologize to Audrey and Emily for being surrounded by rejects and basically being dragged by me to this event. I owe you guys a lot :) It was great to ring in the new year with David! He accomplished so much in 2008 and I am so very proud of him! I hope 2009 brings him great things as well! Sorry that this post has become so lengthy. I just didn't want to leave any detail out of my stressful/glorious new years eve. Here are some pictures of David and a video of his performance "Crush."