Road Trip!!

On the a scale of 1-10 for reasonableness, we I get at most a -17.
So Ludo. Ludo=my favorite band ever. Let me give you some background: When Stef and I were freshman living with Hannah she introduced us to Ludo. Ludo has this rock opera...it's amazing. The three of us would frequently lay on our living room floor with the lyrics to the rock opera in front of us and belt the whole thing (it's 1/2 hour long). We vowed that if Ludo every played the rock opera in concert we would be there, no matter how hard it was to get there.
Well Ludo did go on tour to play the entire rock opera. The closest concert to us was in Pomona, California. We were so there.
Except Stef and I are just a bit more unreasonable and thought "Well..since we're going to California anyway why don't we just take a quick stop up in San Francisco [you know, 7 hours away from where we actually need to be] and see Wicked!" So we did. We left Friday morning at 4am and drove all the way to San Francisco. (That's 12 hours.) When we got there we checked into our hotel which was surprisingly posh. We definitely did not fit in. For example, everyone else was pulling up in their limos. But it was awesome! We got ready quickly and headed out on the town to find our theater which was only three blocks away. Unfortunately all the crazies lived on those 3 blocks and after a few too many uncomfortable conversations with some of them we decided to head back to the hotel and take a cab to the theater.
OH MY GANDHI the show was amazing. Like, so amazing! People said it was amazing and I liked the music and all but...WOW. Stef and I had to listen to the album 16 times in the car ride the next day.
So the next morning (after ordering yummy room service) we got back in the car to head to Pomona (a 7 hour drive). On the way in to Pomona we found a palm reader and of course we had to stop. Apparently I am broken but not yet shattered and for a great price of $600 my psychic can lead me in the right direction because one more wrong step and I will be shattered. Mmhmm.
We stayed at Kyle's AWESOME grandparent's house in Pomona. When we got there we met up with Hannah and Emma and Kyle and Zack and headed to Downtown Disney to go to Rainforest Cafe. I cannot even tell you how hard it was to be AT Disneyland and not go inside. But dinner was lovely.
After dinner we headed to the venue for the concert. We waited in line and chatted with other obesive fans. The other bands that played were alright. Mostly I just wanted to Ludo to come on...and then they did. It was AMAZING. They played SO MANY SONGS! And then they played the rock opera. Oh goodness. It was glorious. I need some member of Ludo to marry me. Any of them, really.
After the show we bought shirts and got pictures with everyone then headed home. The next morning we got up early (ok, 8. Is that early?) and headed home (a 9 hour drive).

Have you been doing the math? 12 hours+7 hours+9 hours=28 hours of driving. Yeah baby. Best weekend ever. Here's what our driving looked like:

School is cool.

I feel the need to give some updates on my life. First of all, school is cool. I kind of decided that graduating isn't what I want to do because then I have to be a grown up which seems lame.
I have an awesome and busy life. Classes are going really well. I'm taking less credits than I ever have. It makes me feel all relaxed and happy. I also have two jobs, one as a research assistant for the same professors I worked for last semester (different project though) and it's awesome. The other job is a grader for another professor. That's...alright. I think I will need to hire someone to do all my grading for me when I grow up.

I was asked to represent the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences on SAC (the student advisory council) for BYUSA and it's really quite cool. I get to be a part of making important decisions about BYU like whether or not the library should allow food-friendly zones (seriously, my decisions are life changing!). Being on SAC has made me see what an awesome place BYU is. There are so many people working so hard to make everyone's experience awesome. Usually I don't feel like a blog is the place to get all serious, but I want to be serious for a mo. I read this really cool quote in my coolio BYU planner. It's by Jeffery R. Holland and this is what he said "Go the extra mile along the remarkable pathway that is so generously provided you here." I feel like that should be my motto here at school. It is such a great opportunity for me to be here at this awesome university, and so many people have sacrificed and are sacrificing for me to be here. I need to do more than the bare minimum. I need to go above and beyond and give back to the school as much as I can.

Ok, sorry about that boring bit. In other news, I have the coolest ward ever. I was called as the FHE mom which is stressful but I love it. If anyone has good FHE activities let me know.
My roommates are awesome. We spend every second together, even if nothing's going on and we're just chillin in the living room. We have made an awesome group of friends from the ward (the boys of 139--and a couple others that are honorary members of 139) and we love co-existing together. We accomplished many fun fall activities including camping, costume parties, pumpkin carving, murder mysteries, haunted houses, and scary movies.

At the beginning of the semester we had Jamal's awesome brother Brian take some sweet roommate pictures of us. All of them turned out FABULOUSLY. If you want to see more you can check out my facebook album and if you want to see even MORE (like 80 more) you can come visit my computer and I.

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with anything. I just wanted to show you how cool my friends are. That would be Harry, Ron, Draco and Hagrid.
This is the most complete picture of the group that I have. It's not all of us, but it's most of us. This is at the 60's esque murder mystery. It was SUCH a blast. Please notice my sweet go-go boots.

To sum it all up: life is good. I like it.

Oh, P.S. If Stefanie had a blog she would write about this but she doesn't so I will. She freaking ROCKED the LSAT. She got 165 which is in the 92nd percentile, which means she is the smartest girl I know. Now she is deciding which law schools to go to. Her options are Stanford, UCLA and BYU. Wowsa.

Ya see, the most fantastic, magical things can happen -- and it all starts with a wish!

We did it! The Franc girls finally conquered fate and finally made it to Disneyland. Third time's the charm, right? (For those who are unaware: Stef and I tried to go to Disneyland last spring but...it's a long story. Basically everyone we were going with backed out about 4 hours before we left. It was heartbreaking. Then we were going to go in August but I broke my arm the day before we left. Obviously fate didn't want us at Disneyland. So this time we kept it a huge secret (at least as well as we could) and only planned on getting in the car Friday afternoon and just...seeing where we ended up. And we made it!!)

It was glorious, of course. We drove to our Grandparents' in Nevada Friday night and took a short nap before getting up in the way-too-early-unless-you're-on-your-way-to-Disneyland morning and headed on the rest of the way. We arrived just as the park was opening and ran (literally) in. It was the best day ever. We were full of good luck which was good because we were slightly worried fate would be bitter at us for tricking her. All kinds of awesome things happened like we walked up to the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience show right as it was starting and we walked past Star Tours just as it was re-opening after a break down so we got to walk right on the line. The result of all our good luck was that we got to ride every single ride we even kind of cared about and got to ride all the best ones twice. We even took a time out in our riding to watch the fantastic fireworks show.

The next morning we went to the beach for a couple of hours. It was beautiful and I can't figure out why I don't live by the ocean. Then we headed back to the grandparents' for some yummy food and some much needed sleep.

We woke up this morning and headed home. It was a very short trip filled with lots of driving but it was totally worth it. Sigh...I ♥ Disneyland.

And here's a shout out to the awesome Cougars who defeated Oklahoma on Saturday. Yeah yeah!!! I adore them. I wish I watched the game! My desire to have watched the game doesn't even come close to my desire to be in Disneyland though so.... does that make me a bad fan?

I ♥ summer.

When I see people that I haven't seen in a long time I like to make them tell me five interesting things that have happened to them since I last saw them. I haven't blogged in a while so it's like I haven't cyber-seen whoever is reading this in a while so I am going to tell you five interesting things that have happened to me since I last blogged. Here we go (in no particular order)...

1. Family Time
I spent a lot of time with my family this summer. I feel like we are all finally getting to the point where we are mature enough to spend more than 4 seconds together without fighting. That's a big step for us! We did various activities like picnics and parades and fireworks and baseball games. We even went to a family reunion in Bear Lake. I would post tons of adorable pictures but they're all on my dad's computer which is not here with me.

2. Mowing Lawns
For the past three years Stef and I have mowed lawn for the Davis School District in the summers. It's secretly the best job ever. It's hot and sweaty and dirty and hard but the hours are good (6:30am-3:00pm every Mon-Fri) and I get all the holidays off. The people I work with are amazing and I get super tan and super blond as a nice bonus. Plus I get amused working with all the crazy old men.

This is my amazing mow crew with our awesoem tie-dyed shirts. We all wore them to work the next day. Do you think any of the crazy old men took us seriously ever? They didn't. Also we had 11 girls and one boy on our crew. The poor boy. He handled it very well though. He killed all our bugs and stuff.

3. Rollerblading
I actually accomplished one of the 3 billion goals I set this summer! I feel like one is better than none, right? Stef and I bought some sweet pink rollerblades and tried to restablish ourselves as the best rollerbladers in the neighborhood (a title we held when we were 8). I'll tell you what, rollerblading is much harder as a big person than it is as a tiny person. When you're short there's less room to fall. We struggled a lot at first. I'm sure the neighborhood loved watching these poor girls in their 20's dragging their feet around and around the block, tripping every other step. But eventually we rocked it. We are now rollerblading queens!

4. 80's Dancing
I have always maintained that everything in life is more fun if you dress up in costumes to do it but usually I have a hard time finding people to play along. 80's dancing is amazing because everyone else dressed up too!! There's this place in Salt Lake that has 80's dancing every Thursday night. You get to dress up in 80's clothes and dance your heart out to some rockin 80's music. I think I am addicted. It's reasonable to dance like crazy until 2am then get up for work 3 horus later. Totally.

Don't mind my face, it's ridiculous. Just look at our awesome costumes!

5. Broken
Le sigh. I broke my arm, Everyone always asks me what happened and I kind of have to tell them that I don't know. I was slip 'n' sliding but I didn't really fall on it I don't think. I think I was sliding down and stuck my arm out to keep me from flipping around backwards and it slipped behind me and twisted and snapped. It was at a work party so there were no parents there (at least not mine) and people may think I look like an adult but I am SO not one so I almost lost it (emotionally, I mean. I didn't almost lose my arm, it was very attached). I could feel it bent all wrong up behind me but I didn't dare look at it so mostly I just started yelling hysterically (I told you I'm not an adult, don't judge). Stef definitely came to the rescue. She was amazing. She remained so calm and called my parents and told me not to look at my arm. There was no blood or anything, it was just bent very wrongly. My boss's wife drove me and Stef to the ER where they asked me stupid things like what my pain was on a scale of 1-1o. What kind of a question is that?! How would I know?! That was the first painful thing that every happened to me! Anyway to make a long story short(ish) my left humerus is broken in a spiral type fracture. I had a splint on for 2 weeks that made it so I couldn't move my arm at all. I was completely useless. I couldn't even button my own pants. I got a different brace on it a few days ago that makes it so I can use my elbow but I still have to wear the stupid sling. I have to have this brace on for 6 weeks though. 6 freaking weeks! That is practically forever. I could die before then. It's still pretty sore but it's getting a lot better. I will never take the use of my left arm for granted ever again.

This is not the best picture of me...in fact it could quite possibly be the worst picture ever taken of me. I was not aware the picture was being taken and apparently my resting face is a scowl. Anyway it's the only picture I have of my injuredness.

The end! I guess on paper (or whatever this is--blog...land) my summer doesn't look very exciting but it really was. I love summer SO MUCH. But I'm definitely ready for some school now!

Shut up, Brain!

It is entirely possible that every single person who has ever stumbled upon my blog has wondered at the title of it. niccoletobrain.blogspot.com with the title "Shut Up, Brain". I feel the need to post a blog with an explanation. So here we go:
There are these books. They are excellent. There are 9 of them. They are by Louise Rennison and are about a British girl named Georgia Nicolson. My friend Karen read these books and then was worried that I never actually had a personality, I just stole Georgia's. In these books Georgia is writing in her diary about her hilarious and oh-so-traumatic life as a teenager. Anyway, she is always telling her brain to shut up because her brain is crazy pants.
Here is a small section from book #4 "Dancing in My Nuddy Pants" which I think demonstrates quite nicely the hilarnosity of Georgia and also shows her telling her brain to shup up.

As I came into the main street I could see the Sex God was waiting for me by the clock tower. I ducked into a shop doorway for a bit of basooma adjusting and lip gloss application. Also, I though I should practice saying something normal so that even if my brain fell out (as it normally does when I see him) my mouth could carry on regardless. I though a simple approach was best. Something like, "Hi" (pause, a bit of sexy smile, lips parted, nostrils not flaring wildly), and then, "Long time no dig." Cool--a bit on the eccentric side, but with no hint of brain gone on holiday to Cyprus. I came out of my shop doorway and walked towards him. Then he saw me. Oh heavens to Betsy, Mr. Gorgeous has landed. He said "Hi, Georgia" in his Sex-Goddy voice and I said "Hi, Dig". Dig?? He laughed. "Always a bit of a tricky thing knowing what you are talking about at first, Georga. This usually makes it better..." And he got hold of my hand and pulled me towards him. Quick visit to number four on the snogging scale (kiss lasting three minutes without a breath). Yummu scrumboes and marveloso. If I could just stay attached to his mouth forever I would be happy. Dead, obviously, from starvation, but happy. Dead happy. Shut up, brain, shut up! Brain to mouth, brain to mouth: do not under any circumstances mention being attached to his mouth forever.

Hahahaha! I love it. So since Georgia and I share a personality I named my blog after our commonalities (we both have crazy pants brains). So read the books if you're looking for a quick and fun read that won't actually stimulate your brain in any meaningful way, it will just make you laugh your face right off.

I consider this big news. It was big to me.

Hello blogging world! Stefanie here. I commandeered Niccole's blog because I needed to make an announcement and don't have a blog of my own. Perhaps I should get one but, frankly, why do I need one when I can steal Cole's any time I need to?

Anyway, on to the news: I got my hair cut short!!! Perhaps some viewers out there would not consider my current length short, but keep in mind that I have not cut more than 3 inches off my hair for my entire life. That is 21 years without a significant change in hair length. Would you like to see photos?

Here is the before, which is super nasty because I had just gotten off work. Seriously, I changed in a gas station bathroom and put makeup on in the car while Cole was driving. As Rachel was washing my hair she said, "You have something very strange on your scalp. What is that? Oh, it's grass." I wish the last picture of my long hair could have been beautiful, but oh well.Here is the after picture!!! I love it so very very much! I wish you could all see it in person because it looks even better. I'm not sure you can tell from the picture, but it is an A-line cut, so it's shorter in back and longer in the front. It makes me look so much older and professional, which is totally what I was going for.And finally, here is the picture that shows just how much hair was taken off! Eleven inches. The salon is donating it for me, so that's great.I am so pleased.I have always been an advocate of long hair and swore that I would never be one off those women who cut their hair off when they have kids. However, I have changed my mind! Long hair is still beautiful of course, but short hair is fabulous too! It still feels weird when I wash ot or brush it, but I have no regrets whatsoever!

New!

I got a new laptop! Isn't it sad that my summer life is so boring that I think getting a new laptop is actually blog-worthy? Not that getting a new laptop isn't a big deal, it totally is, but it is definitely not blog worthy. What more do I say about it? I got a new laptop. That's it. It's pink.

I feel pressure to make this a more substantial blog. Summer is going excellently. I luuuurve summer.

Alright, fine. I have a confession: I have not accomplished any of my goals. I haven't even started trying to accomplish any of my goals. Don't judge, I work a lot! Mowing lawns is awesome. My tan lines are already strange. I'm also doing some work for one of my professors at school which is going well. So see? I totally have an excuse to be a failure for the summer.