One Step Closer to Stardum (sp?)

Eureka! I've found the secret to having vibrato when I sing!! Driving to work through American Fork over the construction!! I can see my dream of being a good singer come into focus....

You see, I have made it a habit to sing every song on the radio at the top of my lungs, complete with elaborate dance moves while driving to work each day. Yes, I have gotten many looks from passing cars. I've even got a few pig noses from little kids smushing their face against the window trying to get a better look. Despite the stares and pointing fingers, nothing relieves a long day at work like practicing my American Idol debut. So if you want to fine tune your vibrato and battle it out with Mariah Carey, stay to the left and head north through Lehi and American Fork. For the sake of my singing career and those sitting next to me in church, I pray the construction never ends.

Warped Tour 2010.... EPIC

Last year Warped Tour left me in such a fantastic state of twitterpation that I could not resist attending another year of all that greatness. Much to my dismay, most of my friends were unable to attend with me, but no worry, I convinced a few poor and unfortunate souls to tag along with me as I jumped from band to band like a child in a candy store. Yes, I really am that obsessed with this insane event. I convinced Kaylyn, Jordan, Parker and Adam Lutz to join me, and just like last year, we all made shirts for the occasion! They turned out soooo great! I've got some pretty creative friends/siblings. :)
Well turns out that almost all the bands I wanted to see overlapped other good bands, so we had to make a tough decision and find the top 3 bands we wanted to see.

Hey Monday, The Summer Set, The Rocket Summer, NeverShoutNever and mainly MAYDAY PARADE were the bands I wanted to see. Unfortuanely, we were only able to catch Hey Monday, The Rocket Summer and Mayday Parade. Since Mayday Parade was very last, we had a lot of time to kill..... So we walked around a lot, looked at each band's tents, etc. The weather had been great for the whole day, until about 4:00. We had a few hours to kill until Mayday Parade, and it started pouring rain!! Rain pelting us from all angles, feet tired from jumping up and down in crowds, and the beginnings of becoming farmers showing on our arms, I nervously looked around to our group. Do you guys want to wait it out until Mayday Parade? Everyone was trying to be nice to me, but I could tell that deep down they wanted to call it a day. The rain continued and I tried to keep spirits high by encouraging that the rain would stop soon. Rain, Rain, Go AWAY, Come Again ANY other day but today. It looked like there was no end in sight, but my fingers were still crossed. We couldn't leave before we saw the best band here! Especially when it had been kind of a crappy line up in the first place. I tried using the, "hey, at least we are making memories!" cop out, but that went over about as well as it usually does with me when my mom says it. Finally everyone thankfully agreed to stay. Whether it was out of pity for me, or out of belief that my life really would be over if we left, I didn't care. As long as we stayed. Thankfully, the rain subsided about 30 minutes before Mayday Parade was to start. Prayer really does work. Can I just tell you, that waiting in the rain was COMPLETELY worth it?? Mayday Parade was FANTASTIC!! Adam and I even shimmied our way up to the front, right behind the bar! Screaming at the top of my lungs and jumping around like a crazy person I had the time of my life. To my current knowledge, there is nothing comparable than an amazing concert by one of your favorite bands while you are squished in between a bunch of sweaty people. The best is when there are so many people crammed together that when everyone is jumping, you don't have to do anything to be moved up and down with the crowd. They jump for you! Same thing happens when you get in a circle of about 10 people and they all sit down on the person's knees behind them. Who knows how it works, but it's fantastic. One downside to being in an awesome concert at the very front along the bar. Crowd surfers. In a normal concert you'll get a few crowd surfers here and there that you can help heave to the front. Amplify that by a bajillion and you get Mayday Parade's crowd. One after the other, sometimes two on top of each other formed a continuous stream of crowd surfers. I'm sure this looked cool from above, but when you are the one underneath it is not so cool. When crowd surfers get to the front the bouncers just pull them down to the ground for the surfer to get out. Unfortunately this means using the front row as a slide to ease their fall down to the ground.

Dear Fat Sweaty Crowd Surfer Man:

Thank you for kicking me in the back of the head repeatedly and bending me completely in half over the bar so I can make your decent a little more comfortable.

Sincerley,

Hailey Francis.

Besides that, the music was fantastic, new bands were found and memories were indeed made. Here are some pictures of this fantastic day! Enjoy!

This Lady Is Good.... Psychic?

Last night Anisa and I went on a nice run (I'm going to estimate about 2 miles, because saying 1.589 miles doesn't sound as impressive) around Mapleton. I love running with her because we talk the whole time, which keeps me distracted and not thinking about each step I'm taking, thus making for a farther and more productive run! After that, we decided we would do some sprints like the old days. (knee did great! No limping!) After a few of those we were tired and decided to do some Abs of Steel and Winsor Pilates Buns and Thighs tapes. Those things are freaking hard! They try to counteract the intensity level by putting smiling flexatrons as your examples, soothing background music, and a calm voiced lady (rather a drill Sergeant) giving you instructions for the exercises. Nevertheless, Anisa and I followed every step and laughed at the ridiculous outfits they were wearing. As we switched from Abs of Steel to Buns and Thighs, we were not warned that the instructor would be telepathically with us through the tv. I will admit, a few times I would take the easy route, or only go halfway because my buns were burning! Immediately as I would drop my shoulder the instructor would say, now make sure you aren't letting your shoulder drop! Snapping my shoulder back in place I laughed with Anisa about how she had caught me. Then it continued. Make sure not to bend your knees, this makes it easier. Don't stop now, you only have 2 more left. Don't rotate your hips, keep them straight! Sheesh! What the heck lady?! How do you know that at this exact point I have stopped concentrating on using my powerhouse? It was a bit freaky. The best was when she would say, Now don't forget to breathe. This sounds retarded because we breathe all day everyday without having to be told to do so. However, whenever she would remind us, Anisa and I both let out a huge breath in relief. Why is it that we forget to breathe? The fact that these exercise ladies can get inside our brains to make us think that doing just 4 more leg lifts overpowers our natural instinct to breathe is.... a problem! :) I leave this with you to experiment and to be made aware the next time you pop in the good ol work out videos. See if you fall under their psychic powers....

FB

Sadly, tis true. The world of facebook (fb- as I hate to call it) is revolutionizing our imaginations. I could decide that one day I would like to have strong feelings towards animal cruelty, and the next that I am newly engaged for the 4th time this year. We all say that facebook is great to "connect with old friends," or to "keep in touch..." Don't worry, I try to believe those reasons are why I still have a facebook too. In reality, "connecting with old friends" means digging for gossip about who's engaged, who's pregnant, if their kids look like aliens, etc. To "keeping in touch" means looking through other people's pictures until you suddenly come to the realization that you have been staring at your computer for 4 hours and are now looking at a friend of a friend of their boyfriend's friend's christmas vacation pictures. Besides being super creepy, I've found looking at random people's pictures to be a bad in social situations. Hanging out with some friends I recognized one person, but couldn't place where we had met before. He had NO IDEA who I was, but I was sure we had previously met. It was only until about 20 minutes later that I realized I recognized him from pictures he had on facebook with my friends. The lightbulb clicked which brought the follow up question from him. So how do we know each other? Did you figure it out? Denial. You know I still can't remember, weird. Umm... well... cya! Not the most normal conversation starter: Oh we know each other because I stalk you on facebook. Yeah that's a croud pleaser.

I will be the first to admit that the world is being controlled by facebook, especially when it is being used as evidence in our law firm; but I still have my facebook account. Facebook and I are in a love-hate relationship you could say. Oh great idea! Relationship status, updated.

Motherly Instincts

Will someone please tell me what good thing can come out of this? Yes that is a mother with her kids in a stroller, and yes she is attempting to cross Highway 89 with cars traveling at least 55 mph past her..... WHY?!?!?!

As I shake my head in disbelief, I can at least say I've learned a valuable life lesson.

Don't be stupid.

Oh, and always remember to look both ways.

Almost as Embarrassing

Everyone has had one of those "I went to school naked/in my strawberry shortcake undies" dreams or rather nightmares. We all dread the day when one of these nightmares will come true. I was on a 20 year streak of awesomeness in this department until yesterday.... Let me set up the scene for you:

~Weather: Hot, extremely hot, almost sauna like

~Location: Basement, privacy, generally undisturbed

~Variables: Blow dryer and curling iron adding to the initial statement

~Mental State: Scattered, Feeling the stresses of being late

While getting ready for church I put on my dress, starting putting my make-up on and realized that if I wanted to continue to wear this dress I better either wave my arms up and down like a chicken, or change into something a bit less binding around that area. For future reference, the dress I had chosen to wear required a two step process to zip up. Step #1 I could zip it up halfway and then would finish it off with Step #2 by reaching above my head and pulling the zipper up the rest of the way. Simple enough. So to cool off and save my dress from further liquidation I decided to unzip my dress, fold it over at my waist and continue getting ready in my cami. I finished getting ready, and prepared myself for the intense heat. Slipping on some high heels I checked in the mirror one last time to make sure everything was in place. Running out the door, I barely made it to church before the meeting started. I sat by myself and saved a seat for Anisa to come later. Shortly thereafter, Anisa slides in next to me and immediatley leans over to wisper, "Crystal stopped me on the way in and told me to tell you that your dress isn't zipped up all the way." I looked at her, feeling the embarrasment rapidly appearing on my face and asked if she'd zip the rest up. Step #2: Fail. I hoped and prayed that no one noticed, but then realized a few things. I walked in late meaning that everyone was ready to go, eyes ahead and would have noticed someone walking in front of them. I always watch people file in late and try to find a seat, so I'm sure there are at least a few other people out there who share that same joy. Also, Crystal and I talk on occasion, but definitely not all the time. If she noticed and thought it was bad enough to urgently catch Anisa to tell me, then it was bad... Thank heavens she is such a nice great, wonderful, thoughtful person. The whole meeting I couldn't help but feel embarrased. It isn't even that big of a deal, but I couldn't help it. Who knows what people saw, or if anyone even noticed, but I can now say that I'm getting closer to the granny panties nightmare coming to reality. Please tell me that this is as close as I will ever get...

Photo Update

I have a lot to talk about, but instead of using words, I'd rather tell you about what's been going on via photos! Here are some pictures from the 4th of July and my cute cousin Sophie:

[Max trying to steal a hamburger....]

Karlie's Weekend Bachelorette Party!! July 9-10, 2010 with Kaylyn Swanson, Anisa Andrus, Katrina Jensen (Morrey), Karlie Jensen (Mitchell) and myself!

Karlie and Jake Mitchell tie the knot~July 14, 2010
Well there are some pictures for the time being. This is taking forever, so that's all I'm putting up for this one. :) Karlie's wedding was beautiful, she and Jake are so stinkin' happy! Now their life moves forward with married people things like doing laundry, cooking meals, kissing, and etc..... ;)