Lene Kristine Botolfsen.

I purposefully ignored this girl's birthday. Because I was on vacation and didn't really have a way to wish her an appropriate happy birthday, and if you know Lene Botolfsen, you know that she needs an appropriate happy birthday.

Lene's birthday is one of the most important days of the year. Lene is not ashamed to celebrate! (See Lene's Birthday 2010). And so, because I could not celebrate with her this year, I thought I would list 26 reasons why Lene Kristine Botolfsen is one of my favorite people in this whole wide world.

at her going away party.

1. She is extremely--but not mistakenly--confident in herself and what she wants. She's not afraid to be herself, and she's not afraid to show who she is. This quality ultimately brought a change in my through my association with her. Why should I be nervous to call a boy? Ask him to hang out? Lene isn't. She's cool and collected and very sure of herself.

2. She is very loyal and really cares about people. If you are Lene's friend, she will keep in touch with you, and you will be her friend forever. She devotes a lot of time and money to the people in her life, and that's exactly how it should be. Lene works hard to maintain the relationships that she cares about, and that is admirable. It's exhausting to have as many friends as Lene does, but she takes it in stride.

3. Lene is just so cool. This is what I tell people. That she is literally the coolest person I know.

4. Lene shops and spends money more than anyone else I know.... which makes it a blast to shop with her. One time we were in Banana Republic and she found, and this is a true story, a velvet, purple blazer on sale for a decent price-- but not a fantastic one. And she bought it. Because, what if she needs it when she teaches elementary school? She just might. Or, imagine Lene as a farmer's market. The average customer wanders around and looks at things, talks to the people at the booth, buys maybe a little bit of fruit, and then goes home. Or, if you are me, you buy nothing. ever. But Lene buys....lots of things. Not an unreasonable amount. Not like she's a crazy person. But I was always just in AWE of the way she could talk herself into buying things. :) It was adorable.

5. Lene. likes. kissing. I'm fairly certain that anyone who has ever MET Lene can attest to this fact, because she happens to bring it up quite frequently. Not inappropriately, but contextually and hilariously. In our apartment we had not one, but two mistletoes hanging from the ceiling-- year round. Around Valentine's Day we had a Kissing Booth... that stayed up until August. We had, in one area of our living room, what we like to call the "kissing corner." There was a small poster with kiss marks all over it. We each kissed the poster to signify each boy that we, as 4 roommates, had kissed. When Lene comes into town this August, I think we've collectively got like 4 to add... maybe more.

6. Lene takes an absurd amount of time to do things...like homework. It's not because she's slow. or dumb. The contrary is true, actually. It's because she likes to watch TV or a movie while she does her homework. Why not get some enjoyment out of it, right? When Lene reads this she will protest. She will say that watching something did not make her take longer... but I swear it did.

yes. lene is the one on the left. and yes. she looks terrifying.

7. Lene is very independent and very tough. She does what she wants, when she wants. Not to inconvenience people or anything, but like, if she wants to walk to the grocery store at midnight to get some milk by herself, she will, despite the repeated and emphatic objections of her roommates who care about her and her safety. She also, one time, rode her little red beach cruiser to the Provo Towne Center movie theater for a 7:00pm showing. And then she wanted to watch another movie. so she did. and then another one. a midnight showing. SO. She rode her bike home, by herself, across the SKETCHY bridge on University Avenue that goes over the railroad tracks, at like 2 AM! Crazy woman. But that is Lene. And that is why we love her.

me and lene, pretending to be dating Kevin and Geoff.

8. Did I mention that Lene LOVES Robert Pattinson, the Twilight movies (even though she knows that they are dumb), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Dawson's Creek. She loves them. Last summer she watched Buffy and Angel in order, alternating shows every episode, because apparently they connect and happen concurrently, which actually is kind of cool. But who else besides Lene even knows that?

9. Lene has amazing style. She is the queen of accessories, and when we shop together, she is somehow able to buy pieces that I could never see fitting into anyone's wardrobe, but somehow, they do. And they are awesome. Like the velvety purple blazer. I would never, not in a million years, consider spending money on something so impractical. But when she wore it.... I found myself a little jealous. Like, why can't I see things the way she does when I'm trying to build a wardrobe? I see solids and basics... and that my friends, is why my clothes are so boring, but Lene's are so awesome.

10. Lene has a collection of Chuck Taylors. Like a gazillion pairs. When I say gazillion, I mean probably like 15. I really have no idea how many. But that's pretty rad.

11. The first day I met Lene, I was trying to move into my new apartment at Banbridge. I found the apartment, but I had no idea where the management place was. That means I couldn't actually get checked in or get my key or anything. So I knocked on apt 12. The one right across the hall. And Lene answered. She seemed very nice, and very helpful. I noticed that she had a little bit of a strange lilt in her accent. But I didn't think anything of it. Why would I? I didn't find out for like another two weeks that she wasn't from our country. (Which leads me to #12) But she gave me the info that I needed, and little did I know that she would change my life. :)

oh yes. excitement over the little things. you wouldn't guess, but we were at IHOP in this picture. At the traditional finals week dinner.

12. Lene is Norwegian. She is, by far, my favorite Norwegian. Last year when I was student teaching, there were some visiting students from Norway for like a day. And the girls reminded me of Lene-- probably just because of the way their English sounded. :) But anyway, she is very proud of her Norwegian heritage. I have, because of Lene, celebrated the Norwegian national holiday, May 17, 2 times, and with much vigor and vim. Lene makes Norwegian food, decorates, invites everyone that we know to come over, and then on occasion, makes everyone learn and sing the Norwegian National song. It is so great. And so Norwegian. And omg, Lene and her Norwegian skin gets sunburned worse, and more often, than anyone I've ever seen.

13. Lene speaks English better than most Americans. This is partially because she's just so darn intelligent, but also partially because she was always meant to be an American, I am sure of it. On the 4th of July, she just goes around, with her patriotic shirt, waving her little American flag, and saying, "I LOVE AMERICA!"

14. Lene is not shy.

15. Lene celebrates everyday more, and better, than most people. She is always up for planning more things, doing things elaborately, and making excuses to see her friends-- to spend time with people that she likes. In the last 3 years (since I've known her) she planned a significant number of events for everyone to enjoy. And sometimes, she very gracefully let me help her. We planned a lot of things together, and I don't think I've ever had more fun-- or seriously---been more stressed. The short list includes: 2 For Like Ever parties, 2 Picnic Awesomes (I have, so far, dropped the ball on that this year, ps... maybe we'll do it when you come to visit), 1 bomb halloween party, smoothie nights, 2 17 Mai parties, several events on the roof of banbridge, the Old Maid's Day extravaganza, lotsa blacklight dance parties, countless summer weekends of fun, 2 fully-orchestrated birthday bashes, an excellent going-away party, dinner nights for friends, and omh one time we had a bike gang that had this really hierarchical leadership struture that Lene was the master of-- and we would go Slickgangin like once a week and it rocked...etc., etc., etc.

black light madness. Yes, Lene's arm says, "I <3 MEN."

I was in DC student teaching, but I had to make a presence at the For Like Ever. And Amy did to, of course. So Lene made signs. :)

Halloween 2011. At our epic party. And these are my girls. honestly, it's a miracle we were able to gather everyone for one picture. a miracle.

Our collection of summer '11 friends. you know, the summer crew.

Slickgangin

16. Everyone wants to be Lene's friend.

17. Lene is very, very smart. And very dedicated to her school work (most of the time). She went into elementary education because she genuinely cares about children and wants to make sure that they learn all the important stuff-- and that they are comfortable at school and have a safe place to go.

18. Lene is very nurturing, and she is going to be an awesome mother. She'll be the cool mom, but also the mom that her kids trust and depend on. I'm so excited to meet her children, btw. because they. will. be. rad.

19. Lene is very organized. She keeps binders full of all her things, and they are all labeled.

20. As a transient college student, Lene still made it a point to collect house decorations-- things that she will want in the future, too. I do not have that mindset, at all, so it was always surprising to me. But awesome. Our apartment was adorable, because of Lene and her decoration collecting habits.

21. Lene likes really manly, manly men.

Our relief society sleepover. We were obviously up to no good.

22. Lene treats our church, and the gospel, as her highest priority. She loves to serve. And she has a testimony, that while serving as her 1st counselor when she was Relief Society President, I learned a lot from. She taught me how to serve with love and kindness, but with firmess-- and she always allowed the Spirit to guide our actions as a presidency. We had loonnnnnnng Sunday meetings. But they were awesome. I looked forward to them every week. I loved the girls in our presidency, but I also loved learning from Lene. We followed the Bishop's counsel to a T. Lene had deep respect for Bishop Brough. She was also always very concerned about our girls. More than the rest of us. She made extra visits, and did what else she could, in her limited time, to serve them. She was an amazing example.

you know, just a small collection of boys.

another small collection. both of these groups of boys came over for dinner as a farewell to Lene, fyi.

23. One time, Lene texted all her favorite boys something akin to the following: "come over so we can cuddle." (that is not a direct quote. I don't know what it actually said... I just know it said something about cuddling). Within like half an hour, there were 12 boys at our house. 12.

24. Lene has excellent picture taking skills. She takes pictures that actually capture moments, and she's not awkward about it. For some reason, I have a hard time making people pose for pictures. I just do. But Lene doesn't. She makes people pose, and they want to. And she makes people take self-portraits, which are always hilarious. And then she posts the pictures. She has over a hundred albums on facebook. They document her college life, and that's amazing. You only have to look at her pictures to realize what a cool person she is. She experiences new things and she's not afraid. And she documents it, and it's just so great. I think that like 70% of all my pics on facebook are from Lene. :)

the 4th of July. Night before. camping out for the parade. Because in the words of Lene,  "what is more American than a parade?"

iceblocking. together. it didn't work. and no, we didn't mean to match that day.

we thought this pic was going to turn out cooler than it did. dang it.

25. Lene gets excited for people. She very appropriately reacts to news that you have. She cares about what you are doing and how you are, and she gets excited. And sometimes, you just need someone to act on the outside exactly what you are feeling on the inside, but just can't let it out.

In San Diego. At the beach. 

26. Lene has a goal to eat a meal in the smallest and largest cities in every state. Who else thinks of something like that besides Lene?

And last: Since Lene left Provo, there have been many occasions when our friends-- or other people-- have made comments about her absence. They tend to say things like, "you can't replace Lene. there is only one Lene." and it's true.

Our last picture together, before she left forever. 

I love you Lene! Happy happy birthday. And thanks for being my bestie. :)

And also. I'm so excited to see you on August 6th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Maid's Day

(I recently realized that I have a bunch of unfinished drafts of blog posts... so I'm going to publish some of them. This was written in June of this year.)

So I like to throw parties. In a series of fortunate events I learned that June 4 is Old Maid's Day. I decided that there was only one way to celebrate such a great holiday that commemorates so many of my favorite people. Because, you know, if more people celebrated Old Maid's Day maybe it would be more worth it to be an Old Maid. (ps, I don't actually think I am an old maid. But I love in Provo for crying out loud).

Anyway. That one way to celebrate was a monster girl party. The exclusive facebook invite looked a thing or two like this:

So guess what.

June 4th is officially Old Maid's Day (according to some random website I found like 2 months ago).

In Provo world, many of us are old maids. Or even if we are not old maids, we like to have girl parties.

So. Come for girl foods (aka chocolate, ice cream, buttery buttery popcorn, cutie cupcakes, and a veggie tray to make us feel less guilty), girl movies (aka She's the Man, Mean Girls, and/or How to Lose a Guy in 10 days), and lots of gossiping. Come with all your juice (preferably about cute boys).

And the most important part: this party is. a. secret.

It's an exclusive bash. "It's just for a couple of cool people and you better be one of them bio***." (guess)

Bring your pajamas, blankets for comfort and sleeping, possibly your mattress, food, and other necessaries.

LAST THING: BRING YOUR FAT PANTS LADIES!

I'm so funny.

So we had lotsa food (including chocolate chip cookie covered oreos. yep that's right) and lotsa Mean Girls and then lotsa gossip, which included a spectacular game of "truth or truth." Some of the best "truth" questions included, "who is your most embarrassing ward crush ever?" and "if you had to marry someone in the ward RIGHT NOW who would it be?" 

It was a blast, and after only 4 hours of sleep, all of us showed up at church all hyped up and ready to go.

Man. I love being single. 

Lemon/Lime Picnic AWESOME

Why do I always get to stressed out before events that I plan? I always get all freaky and worry that things are going to go wrong-- that no one will show up (or that the few who do show up will think the party is lame), that I won't have everything ready in time, that the party is boring, or whatever.

But everything always works out. Eventually. And somehow I always have so much fun that I'm dying to plan something else. The stress is always worth it. (timeout: I get stressed when I'm throwing a little picnic because I worry about all the people and all the details. Now imagine what I will be like when I throw my own wedding. I'm going to be a basketcase. A monster bridezilla. And I'll feel so bad!!!)

Anyway, last year we had the first "Picnic AWESOME." You guessed it, it was awesome. Lene and Amy threw it. This year, we decided to reprise the awesome. But this time, we added a theme: lemon and lime. We made all our invitations, and they all looked different. The invitation went a little something like this:

when: Sunday June 12, 2011 @2 pm

where: Carterville Park, Orem (the same as last year)

why: because.

Theme: LEMON/LIME

Please Wear: green and/or yellow ONLY.

Please bring: green and/or yellow food ONLY.

Those who fail to abide by the rules will be forced to wear a green sign around the neck that reads: "No longer awesome."

Anywho. Lene, Andrea, and I hand delivered all the invites to make sure that everyone understood all the rules. And do you know what's amazing? Almost everyone followed them. There were a few deliquents who had to wear signs. Look for their pictures below.

Anyway. The Picnic was yesterday... and it came together quite nicely after I worried for a couple of hours.

the table setting: compliments of Lene Kristine Botolfsen. The cool one.

Extras. no longer awesome. These two were such good sports. Except not. haha.

deliberately rude. they wore the wrong colors on purpose because they thought the signs were a more awesome option.

pretties.

uglies. jk.

cute boys.

dani is holding a tupperware of the most delicious cookies in the world.

the birthday girl.

Rachelle: effortlessly beautiful, even when her tongue is sticking out.

specials. rachelle and brad assumed correctly that they could get away with not following the dress code. grrr.

giant game of catchphrase. my favorite. (hint: you make this on the beach...SANDCASTLES!).

requirement: 4 people per snuggie. DANI. get your elbows outta there.

more cute boys. Get a load of the one in the back. we don't know him.

Favorite things about the picnic that I just can't get over:

1. ALL THE MATCHING CLOTHES. You all know that I love it to death when people match. I just got so excited when more and more people arrived wearing green and yellow (okay, mostly green).
2. I just love that when I help plan something, I get to invite a lot of my favorite people. I can assemble the group. In this case it was mostly ward people and old ward people (except the ones who couldn't come). And how awesome is that?
3. The girls did an excellent job bringing delicious yellow and green food. The boys, however, did not shine so well. Some examples: purple peeps (compliments of the 4 cute boys featured above. yes. left over from Easter), tortillas (what were we supposed to do with them?) and PINK watermelon (which was delicious, but really Joe? Against the code.)

So anyway. Picnic AWESOME was awesome.

Charming.

1. Can I please be a member of the Huxtable family? I am in love with Heathcliff Huxtable. I want to marry someone just like him, and then become a Claire Huxtable. I'll be a lawyer while he is a doctor, and we'll have kids who get crazy ideas and ask for money all the time. But we'll put them in their place-- teach them life lessons without the "Full-House" style sappy part at the end (it is for this reason that The Cosby Show is leagues better than its many genre equivalents).

2. I finished "The Book Thief" today, about 7 months in the making. I don't know why I never got into this book. I started in like October and just read it at the gym, then brought it to DC with me, and didn't touch it the whole 4 months I was there. But now I'm done. I finished the last 100 pages today, and you know what? I really liked it. It's a beautiful story about what is important in life-- it's a story of abandonment and guilt, courage and love--- and it's a story about the power of words. I would actually recommend it to anyone. Markus Zusak is somehow able to create small moments that are breathtaking and powerful and stabbing. And meaningful. I'll be thinking about it for a while.

That's all.

Oh wait, we had a party. For Memorial Day. It was crowded. The floor was shaking and I thought it was going to break. We got a lot of highlighter on the carpet (dang it). And there was a girl there (who no one knew) who kept trying to change the music, and I was super moody about it. But there were boys and writing on walls is fun. And as per the Facebook instructions, almost everybody actually showed up wearing white. Yay white-out for Memorial Day and black lights.

See pics below.

isn't this bomb?

Lene is so cool.

some of the early party people.

That's really all.

Breakfast at Kaitlin's

Me and Kait

Kaitlin and her Mama.

Okay, so it wasn't breakfast, and it wasn't at Kaitlin's apartment. It was a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" themed bridal shower! BEST BRIDAL SHOWER EVER (except for the other two that I threw... Uh, I still love you BSC!).

We all wore black and white and pearls, and it was so fancy! We drank sparkling grape juice in tiny champagne glasses that we bought at the party store for $9. Kind of pricey, but so worth it! And Meghan, Lorina, and I made cupcakes- I made black-bottomed cream cheese (thanks for the recipe, Ash, it's my new fave!), Meg made strawberry shortcake cupcakes (that were ADORABLE, by the way), and Lorina attempted to make red velvet, and they would have been amazing, we just ran out of time to finish them before the shower started. Anyway, it was great. We decorated with black, white, a little bit of silver, and a little bit of Tiffany blue. We had pretty table clothes, and Audrey Hepburn posters, and balloons, and all sorts of festive things.

As for as activities for the shower went, Meg made a movie of Spencer answering questions about himself, and Kaitlin had to guess that answers. She actually did a really good job. :) Props. We also played a new game called, "Name that body part!" We took pictures of bunch of boys' arms, hands, feet, eyes, lips, butts, etc., and then we all guessed which ones were Spencer. Kaitlin, incidentally, was the only one who got them all right. It was a fun game, but a little hard to prepare. It was slightly awkward asking the boys if we could take pictures of their butts. We have cooperating friends, fortunately. I also made a little book for everyone to sign notes to Kaitlin in.

To sum up, it was really fun, but TOTALLY stressful. I forgot until just now how crazy it was that morning before the shower. When we woke up in the morning, we still had to take pictures of boys, print off the said pictures, clean the apartment, grocery shop for our cupcake ingredients, make the cupcakes, decorate the house, go the Pebbles to put together the advice book for Kaitlin, go to the party store to get dishes and such, buy balloons, AND shower and get ourselves ready for the extravaganza. The shower was at 2, and we didn't get to the store in the morning until about ten. To put it lightly, I WAS FREAKING OUT. I think I'm a pretty good party planner, I make things fun, right? But for some reason, this all just fell through until the last minutes. Part of the problem was my burnt hand because it made me do everything ten times slower than normal, and the other part was that I was totally out of party-preparing commission on Friday because my family was in town (which was great, by the way). I also have to say that NOTHING would have worked out if I had been doing it all myself. Meghan, Lorina, and Elise helped A LOT, and Ashley, Rachelle, and Ann did a lot too. Thanks, guys. (Also, I don't want to make this sound like it was my shower to throw- we were all kind of in it together- well, mostly Meghan and me). So, back to me freaking out. I was rushing around trying to do everything, making the cupcakes and throwing pots around, and Ann finally said, "Audrey, how about we put on some relaxing music. That usually seems to help you." So sweet, Annie Bananie. She knows that I can't live without my music. The problem, was, though, that the speakers that would have made the music worth playing were IN THE WAY, and we were trying to clear everything out of the living room, so music was not an option. Sad day.


All of the craziness is a success story, though. We were all totally ready by like 2:15 (so a little late, but everyone arrived late anyway). Miracle of Miracles. And Kaitlin, we love you, and all the stress was totally worth it to throw you an awesome shower. I hope you loved it, because it was pretty dang amazing. :) And Hannah, Dani, and Lauren, I'm so sorry you couldn't make it. :(