Chicago part 1 of infinity.

Disclaimer: Seeing as how we think our computer is about to explode soon, this blog post-ness will be kind of journal-ish because I don't want to lose my pictures when our computer does indeed, explode. And our trip was AMAZING so who doesn't want to hear about it? I know. You do.

The participants: Emily Jones, Amy Hamblin, Greg Smith, Jordan Hatch, John Crismon

Chicago: Day/night 1
Yes, in this dark realm is where our hotel was. Let's just say we didn't take off our shoes, should have had an egg roll on our pillow instead of a mint, and we were the only white people staying there.
Apparently, "suite" in chinese must mean 2 twin sized beds. Because that hotel loved their twin beds.
I know. I should be a bed model.


Rolling into Chicago at almost midnight and being greeted with this is kind of sad. But, on the other hand, we did eat some tasty/authentic/slightly scary chinese food that night. The place was open until 4 am, how classy is that?
Even though our food was extremely questionable and we could hardly understand what our lady was talking about, did all the boys clean their plate? Of course. Boys=human garbage disposals. John loved his food so much, he made it known even with his leftovers.

Another thing about traveling with boys? They have no discretion about what pictures they post on facebook. Amy, me, and our friend Greg loving/hating our dinner. Yeah, it looks like Amy and Greg are praying over their dinner. That was a good idea. Lots of prayers needed to be offered for some of the food we ate while there. Yikes.



But, somehow the hotel hypnotized us into liking staying there, hence Amy and I's happy faces. Bad thing about Chicago: the humidity. This picture was CLEARLY taken at the beginning of our day because at the end, we had sweat off all our makeup, wanted to take 10 showers and our hair was little french fry sticks covered in grease/pollution. Just how you wanted to look around your friends and their unforgiving picture taking..

Like I said.

Day 2:


Architecture boat tour

So this had come highly recommended to us by several people. And it rocked. Who doesn't want to sit on a boat and listen to a guy talk about interesting stuff while not having to walk around? Awesome. Only thing that would have been better is if I did all this while eating candy corn and/or drinking a diet coke.

Greg and I loving our boat tour
The rest of the group, Amy, John and Jordan loving life.


But, sad face, it got really foggy.


Next stop: delicious Chicago pizza. Seriously, Chicago, you have ruined me. There is like 10 inches of cheese on their pizza. Life changing.

Amy could not control her excitement for the cheese on our pizza. And we asked our server if people asked for extra cheese on the cheese mountain they call pizza? They do.

Then we went to this really cool metal thing called The Bean. It just looks like a bean and is made out of shiny metal. It was awesome.

All of us taking pictures of us taking pictures of the bean. I know, amazing.

Next, I forced everyone to go to the Art Institute. It is one of the coolest art museums I have ever gone to (and I've kind of gone to a lot). And we needed some culture in our trip. From these pictures, you can tell who did and didn't want to go:

John and his girlfriend.
Us being awesome.

Inappropriate.



So, here's a little spoiler about Amy Hamblin. She kind of h8s art museums. Like medium to a lot. Amy next to her favorite painting.



I, on the other hand, am obsessed. And I made my art students, Jordan and Greg, be obsessed too.


Yeah, this is how we roll. We take pictures of awkward people. What would have been better? If anyone would have agreed to spoon next to him like I wanted.

Next, the Married with Children fountain. Awesome.

We love to ride the trains.
Look, it's me again. Apparently huge white sunglasses are meant only for summer/pool time.

This was sold out. And we were ticked. Note: the world goes to Chicago the second weekend in September. The WORLD.

Yeah, fyi, Navy Pier is lame.

Also lame? The Navy Pier ferris wheel.

Then we walked around more. Like we needed the exercise. And ate this for dinner.
Yeah, it was nasty. Chicago food + Emily=not friends.

Be excited, that was only day 1 and 2.

Things we do to cover up ourboredom of Emily-less days.

life without emilex...

1.) Dress up infant feline as a gangster thug as well as a pretty kitty. (P.S. She really likes it, notice the stink eye.)
2.) Laughing at and taking prego pictures. I've gotten good. Just call me Juno. (I promise that i am sober in the last one, i just suck at being photogenic.)




3.) Being hilarious with Annie. Not to mention taking pictures while making awesome faces. And apparently sleeping on the bus from Mesa all the way to Brimhall, what a distance.

4.) Trying my hardest to not accidently let the swamp thing run away. Also known as our, at one time white, dog.
5.) And LOOOOOVING this band.
And as a side note i won't hate it if someone bought me one of their shirts and gifted with me the lovliness of their albums.
<3 Bubs/Julia

So, sorry for the non-posting. Things to discuss when I get back from this place. Death-day party, my awesome trip. Be excited.

My birthday as documented by a 3-year-old

So, do you know how hard it is to take a camera away from a kid? Impossible. Thus, my birthday pictures taken at Delia's height aka lots of crotch and feet shots.

First, I got the Bible:

No worries, Bishop. I'll read this for 15 minutes every night.

Then I got the visual Bible:
Like I said. Lots of lower body shots.

Of course I got some new decorations:

The Sunday birthday meal:

Julia + baby=smug

Awkward brothers-in-law love.

Family inside jokes are sometimes awkward. And yes, this happens on birthdays.

So, my gift to myself for my birthday was a day of craft with my sister Amanda. And we conquered this Martha Stewart project. It rocked. Us 1, Martha 0. Cutting out the witches, however, took much longer than the 5 minutes she promised. Lies.

Is this real life? Do I have stitches?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Julia After the Dentist." For more awesomeness, go here.





Yes, I later found out you're not supposed to suck on a straw. Whatev. Dry socket shmy socket. It's not my mouth.

Dear Mike Rowe-

I'm sorry, but I feel we need to have some time apart. I just can't take where your hands have been.
Besides, I've found a new lover. He's hilarious and he will always out-eat me.
His show, Man v. Food, is amazing. I'm sorry..

Love, Emily

p.s. I tried to make my blog cute and add this awesome font. And it didn't work. Emily+technology=train wreck.

HP 6

SO, maybe I've been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls lately, but if everyone drank a ton of coffee before making this movie and talked a LOT faster with a lot LESS pauses, I would have enjoyed it more. And let's just say the audience we saw it with was really jolly and laughed a lot. I didn't even feel bad going to the bathroom during the quidditch scenes. Mleh.


Yes, we are one saturated fat gram away from a heart attack. The picture are correct - we are eating both popcorn and cold stone. And no, we don't have to get ready when it is 10928975234897234598273 degrees outside.
p.s. Laura screamed during the "scary" parts. Remember, kids, it's a PG movie. Yikes.

4th of J!

So, this year for the 4th of J, we watched my friend Amy's house in the QC. Btw, QC is like the furthest place on the earth from civilization. Julia and I would play a game when we would get to an intersection of semi-civilization and pick which would be the worst food places to be at that corner. And they would always be there. I.E. Quiznos, Burger King, Dominos. QC loves their Quiznos. There were millions. Seriously, how do people live in Queen Creek. They must love to drive and stare at desert. We even got lost several times and dead-ended and thought murderers were coming to get us.

So our friend, Amy, had the best tv ever and we(the Fletchers, me, Julia, Annie) were this the whole weekend:

It was awesome. We also ate almost a whole box of these:

We did venture outside for like 5 minutes to watch the fireworks. Then decided standing was too much work and went back to lay on the couch. We did get in some awesome tv viewing, though. We watched the 6th season of this:

And most of the first season of this:
This show may be the best advertisement for smoking yet. That's all they do. And I love it. It changed my life. Amen.