18

It's been a fun ride these past 18 years...


















I had an excellent birthday today. It was the first time my birthday was on a Sunday in... well, who knows when. My family (mostly my mom, I believe) threw me a surprise birthday dinner, and it was super awesome to see most of my friends there, eating away at delicious pasta. It was fun and relaxing, even though the happy birthday song sounded more like a death chant...

Naturally a birthday makes one contemplate their life...
and I did. a little.
I've just been thinking about college and moving out and everything that comes with adulthood. I went to a friend's wedding reception on Saturday, and it was so crazy to see someone who was in my P.E. class and Young Women's get married... it kinda gives me chills thinking about it, really. Because I don't really want to get married anytime soon, i'd rather just have fun in college. I keep thinking of what the "real world" entails, and what responsibilities come with fending for yourself. Hopefully I'll survive.
For now, I'll sit back and enjoy the rest of my summer.
Wazzah.

INCUBUS.

I love Incubus.

Mucho.
They are my favorite band, and I just love 'em so much.
In fact, the title of my blog, "Monuments and Melodies," is inspired by the song and album from Incubus.

So last night I went to the Incubus concert, and it was pretty much amazing. Ah, the most attractive Brandon Boyd was once again.... most attractive.

We started off almost in the very front (there were 4 girls in front of us, but that's it), but then these jerks basically punched their way through everyone and shoved us out of the way to get to the front. Seriously? They punched their way through girls... wow, how awesome. For the first 45 minutes, I had to fight constantly to just stay standing. Shoving... elbowing... pushing... weed. Yes, weed. The guy right next to me blew a cloud of pot smoke right into my face and I almost threw up, it was so disgusting. Eventually Tess, Liz, and I got pushed about 7 feet back from where we started, and it was so much more calm because people weren't brawling to get to the front. It was so much better near the back, mainly because I could stop and take pictures of the delicious Brandon Boyd.

As we were heading home, we blasted their Light Grenades album, rolled down all the windows and belted "Oil and Water" as loud as we could. It was fabulous.

Since it was their Monuments & Melodies tour, they played a lot of their old stuff. These are the songs I remember them playing:

Privilege
Stellar
Dig
Anna-Molly
Megalomaniac
Sick Sad Little World
Talk Shows on Mute
Quicksand
A Kiss to Send Us Off
Love Hurts
Drive
Oil and Water
Wish You Were Here
Warning
Pardon Me
Nice to Know You
Punch Drunk
A Certain Shade of Green
Let's Go Crazy

There might've been more, but I can't quite remember all of them.

Incubus. Incubus. Incubus.
ah, drool.
Brandon Boyd <3.

{the below pictures are mine}
(Ben Kenney on bass)

havasupai.

So I decided to go on the Lifferths' annual Havasupai trip at the last minute, and it was insanely delightful.















Tuesday: On our way to Arizona, our car kept breaking down everywhere. I mean everywhere. We got stuck in a sweltering Vegas for two hours before we finally found a part at AutoZone that would help us somewhat. We finally managed to make it to Havasupai at 3:00 a.m. and started hiking immediately. It was the dead of night, so it was no surprise that I slipped on a rock and totally scraped up my leg and arm... drat. The hike was long, we were tired, but we had funny company (thanks Eric and Janna), and managed to get to our campsite at about 6:30 a.m. The last two miles from the village to the campsite were the longest two miles ever. EVER. I could barely blow up my quality pool raft before I attempted to sleep.

Wednesday: We swam up at Havasu Falls before we hiked down to Mooney Falls in the afternoon. Goodness, everything was so gorgeous down there! The hike down to Mooney was more like a cliff-scaling in the sense that you had chains and pegs drilled into the cliff walls to help you get down somewhat safely. To pass the time, we would either sleep, tell stories, or sit in the creek by our campsite and cool down. We were in our swimsuits 24/7, so we could go swimming whenever. It was refreshing. My dinner that night was a combination of a meat log and baguettes smothered in fritos canned cheese. Thanks, Kyle and Drew for providing that nourishing meal...

Thursday: We swam up at Havasu Falls once again before we hiked down to Beaver Falls. We once again had to scale down the cliff to get to Mooney, and go an extra 3 or 4 miles to get to Beaver. We went cliff-diving and swimming for a few hours, and then headed back to our campsite. I almost stepped on a massive scorpion, and I backed into a cactus as well. There were some pretty intense rock climbs on the way back; we're lucky that Adam Nott is the coolest guy ever and he stayed behind to help us and boost us up and what not. We hung around the campsite, went swimming at Havasu once again, and ate dinner. After it got dark, we went skinny dipping. 'Nuff said. When we got back to our campsite, we gave each other massages. They were much needed. Oh, so needed. At about 3:00 a.m. I was woken up by the people across the stream because they were waving their flashlights everywhere. I was super confused and I looked over to see Drew and Mary Raymer awake as well. It took me about half an hour to go back to sleep, good gracious. Isaac told us in the morning that they had been smoking something and that they stopped at 6:00 a.m. and started hiking out. Weird.

Friday: We swam at Havasu yet again, packed up all of our belongings and eventually headed out. We stopped to see the new falls, and jumped off them. These falls were the bomb, because you didn't have to risk death in order to jump off them, you just walked to the top. At the top, I was like, "okay, this isn't very tall." So I jumped. As I was falling, it was more like, "This is a really long fall!" over and over again in my head. We stopped at the villiage and ate lunch before making our trip out. My feet already had tons of blisters on them, but my left heel hurt so bad that I couldn't even walk anymore. Johnny had the brilliant idea for me to take my shoes off, and upon removal, we discovered a large blood blister. Ouch. Luckily Janna had moleskin and what not. Mary Nott, Petey, and I took the first half of the hike out pretty easy. We played "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and took tons of breaks. Adam's group caught up to us, and Mary went with them; it was just Petey and I left. To make a long journey short, I'll just mention the switchbacks. They're 3/4 of a mile of pure hell. I said it- hell. Kyle took my part for about half (or more) of the switchbacks, bless his soul. For real. We started driving immediately after we were done hiking, which turned out to be not such a great idea.

Adam drove most of the way, and in order to stay awake, he drank a 5-hour Energy, two Vaults, and took Excedrin. He was so wired it was hilarious. But eventually, he started going crazy and the road started spinning on him, so we switched drivers to Mary, his sister. Things were all fine and dandy until I woke up to Adam going, "Mary, Mary!" and the car spinning at 75 mph on the freeway. I braced myself and basically stopped breathing- it was terrifying! Mary had fallen asleep at the wheel and swerved left and overcorrected herself and sent us into a spin. We eventually stopped on the shoulder of the road after nicking a mile-marker post. Mary started sobbing, and we were all basically in shock. We switched back drivers to Adam. I'm just glad I'm alive, really. We got super super super super lucky, because we should have rolled. God must've really needed one or more of us to stop us from rolling.

After all was said and done, it took me almost 2 full days to recover from the lack of sleep, and my feet are still healing themselves.
I'm definitely going next year :)

Did I mention that Nutella was a staple food?