& Another One Bites The Dust

and another one goes, and another ones goes.... another one bites the dust!

MY.FRIENDS.ARE.SLOWLY. DISAPPEARING!

If I were 75 or older I might be talking about death... but right now I am talking about social suicide. MARRIAGE! Ga.... I never realized just how many "friends" I had until they all started getting married and I get about three wedding announcements a month....give or take. December and March have been the busiest months but I have had at least one friend get married each month in between. I also found out that I have three weddings to attend already this summer and another one was just made official the other day. So the running total is now up to 4! Ga... it is a good thing I make friends quickly because I might be out of friends soon!

100=Disneyland

So... a few of my classes are somewhat hard. In one of my classes the class average is like a 50. That is doing well actually because there are like 16 kids in the class and two girls make 100 on all the tests and everyone else makes like a 40. I have made like 50's and 55's so I am actually doing pretty well in the class relatively speaking. Well... I am also really talkative in class. The teacher is a genius and will often say... "this is really

quite elementary" or "this should be so clear" to which I will sarcastically remark OH YEAH! DUDE! THIS IS SO EASY... why do we even have to TAKE this class? I feel like I learned this in second grade!!! This usually gets my point across that obviously he is there to TEACH and that we DON'T already know this...when really.... I sometimes feel like he is speaking spanish. You see... I can pick up key words in spanish and I can usually get the jist of the conversation but by no means do I understand every word and I definitely have a hard time SPEAKING it... so it is the same with this class. I get the majority of it but it is hard for me to reproduce what was taught. Well...one day in class the teacher said...Mandi...if you can get a 100 on my next test(out of 108- there is a bonus problem) I will take you to Disneyland! I think he half means this. I know he knows there is no way on earth I could get a 100...but if I do I think he knows I worked really hard and deserve it! Well...going to Disneyland with your teacher can be a little creepy so I told him I wanted an A in the class. He agreed. He says he will still hold his end of the bargain...I will graciously decline (don't get too creeped out the kid can't be much older than 26 ) but I am working my hardest to get a 100! Do you know how much I would LOVE to get an A in this class? Keep me in your prayers because I am going to be studying my behind off!

I don't ever want Spring Break to end!

So it is spring break! How am I spending this valuable time you ask? Well I will answer for you. On a vacation to Florida to bask in the warmth and the beautiful beaches? No. Home for a week of relaxation with my parents and family? No. Seeing cute boys that live in far off states? Nope... not that either. SO WHAT IS IT YOU ASK?!?! Well... I am spending my whole entire spring break sleeping and working!!!

Oh...so not exciting but nice. All of my friends are away and honestly? I AM LOVING IT! I love just me time. I enjoy being hidden from the world. I guess that is one reason why I liked moving to a city where I had no friends or no family at first. And... in just a week and a half I will be in SUNNY SAN DIEGO!! I will get to see one of my old best friends and be in warm weather and beautiful beaches! Granted.... it will only be for about 60 hours but i don't care! I am excited!

Winter Park Colorado

Sorry. Different day same excuse. ( I have been busy). I just wanted to update you guys with a few pictures. I have kinda been BLAH lately. With one best friend in Dallas, and another on a mission, my family in Texas (don't get me wrong I absolutely ADORE my gamma girls but.... yeah) I have been in a slump. Well...Saturday afternoon Candice sent me a text message to see when my spring break was. She was driving from Dallas to Winter Park Colorado where Tim's parent's have a condo and saw an exit sign for Salt Lake City. She thought I was about an hour away. (she sucks at geography) and invited me there for the week.Turns out it was about 6-7 hours difference but I decided I would go for a quick weekend trip anyway (even though I had a midterm Monday.) It took me about 20 minutes to decide I was going and about 15 minutes to pack up. I made a quick stop to the local sprint store to grab a car charger and I was on i-80 headed to Denver. I made it there in about 6 hours!! I got there about 7pm Saturday night and left about 4pm Sunday. It was a quick trip but it was amazing and much needed. We didn't do anything too special....we went to dinner, went shopping, (the cashier asked if we were sisters), she made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, we drank herbal tea and watched TV...we laughed...I am SO INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL for that girl. Anyone who knows me knows I LOATH driving as far as across the street but somehow the 13 hours in the car by myself seemed like nothing. ( I don't know that I would do it again anytime soon though) I am glad I did. I have been in a WONDERFUL mood since then. She really is one of the best people I have ever met.

Candice and I met our sophomore year in high school. We had PE and autocad together. I remember I couldn't stand her at first. She has a very polarizing effect on people. Either you love her or you hate her. I wouldn't say I hated her but she really got on my nerves. She was loud and obnoxious and that was about it. She was always in trouble in PE! I really wish I could remember those days better. I do remember however the first time she actually came and talked to me. It was our senior year of high school (we both skipped our Junior year and graduated a year early) and we had physics with Mrs. Bosworth together. I can't remember why but I was crying or I had been crying. I am pretty sure I WAS crying but it is very vauge. I just remember being sad. It was the last period of the day and I was in the back of the classroom. Candice kicked whoever it was out of their seat and came and sat next to me. She talked to me and made me feel soooo much better! From that day forward she sat next to me and we were best friends. She would invite me to eat lunch with her or go home for lunch ( my very first time I skipped school!! only lunch...but we weren't allowed to leave campus). She made me feel like I belonged. She even had a best friend at the time and Kate HATED me (she didn't even know me I think she was just jealous we spent so much time together) so Candice STOPPED being her friend to be MY friend. I never asked her to choose and I could have cared less if she was friends with Kate but Kate cared so Candice ditched her.


Just at a time when my church friends were being rude and making me feel left out because I wasn't a loser like they were... Candice came to my rescue. I really can't thank her enough for all she did. I didn't get along with my parents or my family very well back then. I guess they just weren't used to me yet and my sister and I got into a fight. I called candice sobbing and all i said was come pick me up. I didn't ask where she was or what she was doing and I didn't tell her what was going on. She knew very well I had a car. She NEVER asked questions...about ten minutes later -the time it took to commute between our houses- there she was. I hopped in her car. Right as we turned the corner my parents were turning the same corner in the opposite direction. Once they had seen me I knew that I would be in mega trouble if I didn't turn back around. I told her to turn back around and she did. She wished me luck as I got out of the car and that was that. I am sure I told her the next day everything that went down but she didn't care. She never cared. She was just there for me. I can't ask for a better friend. My parents hated her which I always thought was funny because I don't know that my parents have ever even talked to her. They just saw her. While her mom told me not to knock and to just walk right in, I don't think Candice ever came over to my house! I never invited her. I will always remember that day. We had lots of fun times too though! Our favorite thing to do was to run home after school and watch Jeopardy! We loved to try and get the answers right. We would coordinate outfits ( wear denim mini skirts on the same day or the day when she wore black leather pants with a red shirt and then I wore my red pants with a black shirt and then the next day we traded outfits)We also made a boat out of CARDBOARD and floated it across the pool in our high school for a physics project. We won and that boat would have lasted FOREVER but some boys got jealous and destroyed it. We also frequented the Galleria many times and I can't think of a better shopping experience than walking in the mall hand in hand into the many beautiful amazing stores they have there! We used to call each other girlfriend & lover all the time. One of the funniest moments in my life was when my mom sat me down and had a heart to heart asking me if I was a lesbian!!!! I was flabbergasted! Looking back I think I would have thought the same thing if I were my mom....but it was hilarious and offensive simultaneously at the time! I think we did it to prove something. Like we were going to do what we were going to do and you couldn't do anything about it. I think we WANTED someone to say something to us just so we could be mean to them! WE liked to be obnoxious and we both hated cops. ( i wonder if being pulled over a lot had anything to do with it) We were and ARE just so much alike. We definitely have our differences but we are a lot alike too. When I was just there she told me how weird it feels for me not to be going to medical school because we are always doing the same things at the same time. While she is not in medical yet she is preparing to take her MCATS . I wish I would have taken more pictures but I hope you enjoyed the ones I did take. The ones underneath are from past years.

Christmas 2005
Christmas 2006

"everyone loves you"

I am really blessed. Really Really REALLY blessed.

Just a random blog. My friend Lindsay had a bridal shower this weekend and I bought her some stuff but the bag I got from the local scandalous shop. Blue Boutique...it sells like lingerie and stuff like that. The bag said Caution... X rated gift. When I walked in I was greeted by the usual MANDO!!! with squeals of joy and excitement even though they were in the middle of a game and then there was more joy and excitement at the bag and everyone could not wait to see what I had gotten her. From that point until Linds actually opened her present everyone kept saying how excited they were to see what I got her and how I always got the best gifts, how they hoped I would come to their bridal showers, and how the Scandal (me) had once again been the life of the party.

Every time I walk into my sorority (always late because I have class that runs into our meeting time) I am greeted by exclamations of joy, shouts of excitement, and hugs that Mando has arrived. I can't think of anyone else they do that for.

Today while talking to one of my best guy friends online we were talking about one of my best girl friends. I was like yep... she loves me. To which he replied WHO DOESN'T?!?! When I tried to say that no one did he was like well maybe not those stupid people in Utah but everyone here in Texas does!! Right after that I got a random text message from a different friend merely stating they loved me.

I really have some of the best friends. Primo top notch friends. I feel very blessed that I am cared so much about by so many people. I think I find it easy to say that no one cares but when you take a step back you realize just how many people love you. I think I forget more times than I remember so I just wanted to write it down in case I have a bad day.... I can remember what great friends I have and how truly blessed I am to have real FRIENDS and not just acquaintances.

Thanks for being one of those people.