la vie en rose

I made it seem earlier like I eschewed all my nerdiness once I moved in the 9th grade and climbed the social ladder. (Yes, I did try out for cheerleading, but only because my friend wanted to be a cheerleader so bad and she wouldn't do the try-outs by herself. Luckily our cheerleading squad required no gymnastics skills beyond the pose that gymnasts do once they finish. They offered a spot on the squad to me. I declined and gave to my friend.)

Ta da! Go Knights! (See? No skill required.)

Actually, I just needed to find the right people that shared and appreciated my quirks.

I have always loved to dress up. So what. Here I am as Dorothy Gale (but Dorothy from Return to Oz. Too bad I didn't have a talking chicken. Or a headless princess. I watched that movie everyday in kindergarten. When I would get bored on long car trips I would recite all the lines. I'm so sorry to my family, because I did this out loud). I was 6, so this is normal.

When I was 7 I became obsessed with the American Girl collection (back when there was only Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly). Loved loved loved those books. (I think that would be my official start in history.) Here I am with Kirsten, in our birthday oufits (thanks, Mom, for making them!)

No real special occasion here. I dressed like this everyday. I went everywhere in these kinds of clothes. No jeans, no t-shirts, no tennis shoes, no backpack. I had dresses and aprons and bonnets and baskets. It helped that we lived by a huge wooded area, as well as having an awesome backyard - including a playhouse my dad built and a grove of trees with a couple paths through them. It also helped living by Sarah Ripley, who dressed up, too (side note - I saw her years and years later at a stake conference. She wasn't a member when we were kids, but she had been baptized as an adult. I guess you never know, huh!)

I met Tina as we were preparing for Girl's Camp (yet another reason why I love Camp). Bridgey and I were YCL's together, and Tina was a YCL with Abby. She went to a different high school, so we had never met before. We were over the 3rd years, along with Amanda and Dianna, those other 2 girls that we really liked (what were their names?), and some others. You can see that we had a massive amount of girls at our camp, since each pairing of YCL's was over like 7 campers. We were at a prep meeting and I remember that Tina was riding around on a tricycle, just being goofy. Of course I joined her. She said that she knew she wanted to be my friend because we were both so silly, but I felt like we were already friends. (More on Girl's Camp another time!) So we discovered our love of antique stores, particularly Wiggett's in Coeur d'Alene. It's best to go there after you've jumped off the rocks into Lake Coeur d'Alene and before you hit up Jamba Juice. They had a good selection of old clothes there.

Excuse me ma'am, but may I have the pleasure of this dance?

That was our summer tradition in high school. The other would be watching Pride & Prejudice, all 6 tapes, in one day, with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, tea, cookies, spinach dip, cucumber sandwiches, ice cream...

Maybe we have time for just a quickie this summer? Before you move to Australia? We're never too old to play dress-up and be silly!