I went to Boston last summer

While I was there my cousin and I went to The New England Aquarium. It was very nice, but kind of small and we spent way more time there then was needed to thoroughly enjoy it. When we were about to leave, through the gift shop, of course, I noticed one of those penny flattening/stamping machine. I collect those, so I walked over and started searching through my bag for my wallet, then my wallet for quarters (it cost 51 cents). I couldn't locate any quarters, but luckily I noticed a change machine. Unfortunately, there was a small handwritten sign taped to it that read "Out of Order." Being the sarcastic and overdramatic person I am said: "Oh my gosh, this is the worst day of my life!"
My cousin gave me a weird look and said: "Then you must have had a really good life so far."

Touché cousin.

I just thought that I'd share that little story with you, considering I had a terrible day today, hopefully this will make yours a little better!

Cheers,
Cayla

Teen Mom

I did not sign up for Child Development. I signed up for Ceramics. But, I somehow ended up in Child Development. Originally, I meant to drop that class and pick up a different fun class. But, unfortunately, my go to class, Culinary Arts, was taught by the same teacher. So I stuck it out.
Then this happened.

This picture prompts a lot of unanswered questions. Why is the baby asian? Why is it wearing such a hideous outfit? Why is it strapped in while on the floor? Who in the world would trust me with a robot baby?
Fortunately I have answers. It was the only one left, the outfit has snaps so I can get to its diaper, I don't plan on ever taking it out of that thing, and my child development teacher.
Tomorrow I have to lug that little peach around school all day. Luckily, I was able to pick it up after school today. Now that I have every hard surface wiped down with clorox wipes, I am ready to be a parent????
Oh no, one minute until the demon turns on and probably starts crying.
Why could I not have just been in ceramics?

Cheers,
Cayla

p.s. it just squealed

Update: Someone is not too pleased with this new addition

I am beginning to feel the same way

english relates to real life

I'm supposed to be studying for my last English exam, which is why our blog has been updated so frequently this weekend. If there's one thing I hate more than almost anything in the world, it's studying. It's not that I'm not interested in my classes, but I hate re-teaching myself stuff that I should already remember. I'm really just sitting here eating peanuts and salt & vinegar chips and occasionally making a notecard or two.

The reason I decided to pay the blog a visit during my super productive study session is actually because of something I ran across in my notes. Right now I'm reviewing "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell, a poem I'm sure all of us skimmed while in high school. I'm now reading it for about the five hundredth time. My English professor (who is actually English, which makes the class a little more interesting) insisted on studying the last two lines of the poem for at least half a class. While revisiting the poem, I realized how much these lines relate to this whole living-life inspiration kick that Cayla & I are on right now.

"Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run."

Basically, what Andrew is saying is that we can't stop time, but we can make the best of it. Fill your life with as much as you can, cause it's not going to last forever. See, the idea of carpe diem even existed in 1650. 

I'm slightly creeped out at how much this resembles The Buried Life's story of reading a poem in an English class, accepting the fact that you're in charge of making your life the best it can be, and then actually doing something about it. I swear I didn't think about that until just now. weirdness.

I really need to get back to studying, this took longer than expected. Especially since I flipped through my textbook for like 10 minutes to find out what year the poem was written, only to realize I was looking in the wrong book. I'm also pretty sure that salt & vinegar chips are laced with crack cocaine.

cheers,

lauren

treehouse

I'm sitting in Cayla's bed (because she has a tv and I don't) and she just walked in with her prom dress. they grow up so fast!

I'll let you guess which is which.

anyways, I'm posting this blog to discuss some new items on le list. the most recent one we added is #79: build a treehouse. as a kid, who doesn't want a treehouse? and let's be honest, as a teenager/young adult/any age, you still want a treehouse. there's something whimsical and mysterious about them, they're kind of a like an escape to another world (aka magic treehouse books). building treehouses also remind me of the pagemaster, which I remember from childhood as one of the most terrifying movies in the world. but, I suppose if I avoid falling asleep in libraries, or whatever happens to that kid, while building this treehouse, then I should be in the clear. treehouses are just all-around awesome. plus, if you work hard enough, they can be totally epic.

yes, I did google "epic treehouse" for that. we've added a few more list items in the last few months, but for some reason we didn't add them in numerical order, so I can't really remember what they are. but for now, we're really trying to focus on this treehouse thing. the first thing we need to do is find a tree, because obviously a palm tree isn't offering the kind of support we're looking for. this one might have to wait until one of us (me) has some kids, and we build them a humongous treehouse in my sprawling new england backyard. yes?

Cayla's crossing off #59: Travel Across Europe this summer, so I need to find something to do as well. Maybe I'll date a guy with a mustache.

cheers,

lauren

hypochondriac

As of right now, the majority of my friends and sorority sisters are sick. Of course, my magnetic immune system had to pick it up, so that's why it's 10 o'clock on a Friday night & I'm sitting in bed. The problem with my immune system is that I pick up EVERYTHING. You'd think after two years at a day care and a year of nannying I'd be over stuff like that. But, while I get every little thing that passes my way, I'll never get it too extreme, just enough to make me miserable for a few days. It's never that big of a deal, except for one problem.

Every time I get sick, I think that I'm dying.

It's a problem. I've been banned from WebMD by my family. That symptom checker can really lead you astray, it always tries to tell me I have these crazy diseases. In all honesty though, that website is a little out there.

Is your difficulty swallowing made worse by swallowing irritating chemicals or poison? You should probably contact a medical professional.

Back when we were kids, we got this little 'symptom checker' wheel in an issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. I forget the actual name on it, but it was something like "Yes, You're Probably Dying". Right down my alley. So, you'd pick your symptom on the side of the wheel, and little windows would match up, saying things like this:

symptom: sore throat

could be: throat cancer

doctor to see: oncologist

in the mean time, obsess about: losing ability to speak

but it's probably: allergies

It was pretty amusing, except for the people like me that would think, "well, what if it really is throat cancer?" and then hop on to their homepage, WebMD for some backup. I really wish that I could find that wheel right now, it's hilarious, and plus it could probably help me figure out what's wrong with me, what doctor to see, etc.

Madelyn says hi.

cheers,

Lauren

why sleep is unimportant

so I was just going to come and write something random until I read what Cayla posted down below.. now I feel like I have to say something useful. My first useful comment will be don't listen to Noah and the Whale unless you most definitely have to. I would stick to just reading the lyrics unless you're backpacking through the back mountains of some random state that people avoid because most of the citizens don't have any teeth. that's a little harsh actually, I just got carried away with the example. I guess Cayla's just going back to her roots.

anyways, before I read Cayla's inspirational little passage, I was getting ready for bed thinking about how I didn't want to go to sleep. see, I have to go to sleep relatively soon because I have to be at work tomorrow morning at 6:45, but right now I can think of a million other things I'd rather do then lie motionless under blankets with my eyes closed. so many things have been happening in my life that I feel like I'm wasting time when I go to sleep. my to-do list keeps growing longer, as does the List on the side of our page. I don't have time to sleep?! how am I going to fly in a hot air balloon, visit all 7 wonders of the world, and date a guy with a mustache if I'm spending my time with my head on a pillow waiting for the alarm clock to go off? here's the plan: tackle to List, do everything else in the world, sleep when I'm dead.

speaking of, every single day this semester is being closer to ending (TEN more school days), which brings me closer to next year, which in the long run just brings me closer to graduating in general. the part where this gets complicated is that I still have no idea what I'm going to do. It's not that I don't have any idea of what I'd like to spend my life doing, it's just that I want to do EVERYTHING. Why can't I be a rock star, and a lawyer, work for ground control at NASA, and a full time mom? Obviously that can't happen, but I want it anyways. I need time in my life to travel the world, climb mountains, paint pictures, cure cancer, save the whales, raise a family, and still be able to relax.  I just need to be Barbie.

she can do EVERYTHING.

obviously, Cayla and I are slightly inspired. hopefully we can start crossing things off our list a little more quickly, that way we can keep adding more and more to it. YAY for living life. 

also, here's a little sneak peak of what is highly possible in my future for this summer:

HOORAY. where are my sperrys?

cheers,

lauren

last week was oddly coincidental

As all of you know Lauren and I (Cayla (haven't done that in a while! (I feel like I'm cheating with my graphing calculator in math with all these parenthesis!!))) had quite an experience on Thursday night. It involved The Buried Life (see post below), which is based off of things to do before you die.
Last Saturday I did Relay for Life. Relay for Life is an event through The American Cancer Society in which you raise money to stay overnight on the highschool's football field and walk a lot. Who in the world ever thought this would be a good idea must have been completely off their rocker, but, regardless, I went. It starts off around 1 pm and everyone is having a great time. Although, it was 97 degrees, so not that much fun. Then around like 9 pm, when everyone is hot and tired and starting to decide that this whole thing is a really stupid idea, they hit you with the "luminary ceremony." This is when they light a bunch of candles in paper bags with people who have/had cancer's names on them. Then they tell you an inspiring story about someone who has/had cancer. Then everyone cries and feels reinspired to stick it out.

This year they talked about a woman who recently died from cancer. I'm not going to retell the whole story because I didn't know her, so that would be a little creepy, but there was something that I found odd. In the presentation, they talked about her having a "Bucket List." Now, I really hate the term "Bucket List" which is why I put it in quotes. It reminds me of that one movie called "The Bucket List" with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nichelson, which in turn, reminds me of all the other movies I've seen with Jack Nichelson that were so boring I could not physically bear to finish watching them. I much prefer the term "List of Things to do Before you Die", because it sounds better, reminds me of The Buried Life (not Jack Nichelson), I get to capitalize Random Words and I can refer to it singularly as "The List". But anyways, I found it interesting that she also had a List. Normally, I wouldn't think so, because Lists are the rage right now. But, seeing The Buried Life and meeting them afterwards does not really constitute as normal for me.

Then, we were all happy because we were helping fight cancer. I went over to talk to my fantastic friends who I don't really see that much anymore because they go to a different school. I laughed my head off the entire time I was over there and was once again reminded that I need to spend a lot more time with them. That lasted until about 2 am, when all my friends went to sleep and I JUST WANTED TO GO HOME. I laid down on the freezing wet football field in a sleeping bag and put in my ipod to block out the group of freshmen making laps while blasting Party in the USA on their boombox.

I was trying to situate myself so the super bright field lights weren't blinding me, which another coincidence happened! This song called L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. (which is so annoying to type) by Noah and the Whale came on. They are some obscure indie band that have come on my Pandora a couple times and I downloaded this song for free from Amazon. But there is a part in this song that goes:

"On my last night on Earth
I won't look to the sky
Just breathe in the air
and blink in the light

On my last night on Earth
I'd pay a high price
To have no regrets
And be done with my life"

So that's what this whole thing is about. It's not about completing The List so you can tell people about it or be like The Buried Life. It's about in the very end, being content with that fact that you have finished everything you ever wanted to do with your life.

There you have it, it took me this long to figure out what The Buried Life boys told me straight up for 2 hours on Thursday. You just can't get through to teens these days.

Cheers,
Cayla

P.S. Lauren is apparently powering through list items now, so I will get cracking on some stuff. I'll let you know which one I decide to start with! Although #59 Travel Across Europe, will be crossed off this summer (!!!!). Unfortunatley I won't get to Spain so Lauren and I will be heading there soon!

P.P.S. I did actually survive Relay and could say that I had an "okay time." I eventually watched the sun rise with all my old friends. Which was really nice, I mean, as nice as a bunch of sleep-deprived teenagers watching the sun rise at 6 in the morning behind a cinder block high school surronded by the biggest grasshoppers I've ever seen in my life could be. But you take what you can get.

Estimado La Vida Enterrado,

Tonight was one of those night that you don't ever forget and write about when your English teacher tells to write something that changed your life. I don't really have the words to describe what happened. I just know that I cannot believe it did!

The Buried Life came to talk at ASU. Lauren, Sydney and I went and freaked out in line for an hour because we thought we weren't going to get in. Then we saw Ben walking down the hallway and we were so surprised we just stood there with our mouths open. Then Dave walked by and we had gathered enough our our composure to say hello. And he was so nice and adorable, it just made us even more excited. We eventually did get in.

Then we had the privilege of listening to 4 wonderful, down to earth boys tell us amazing stories about their crazy adventures. Inspired is an understatement. Then Lauren and I raced up to tell them our dream of going to Spain to practice our español. 

After everyone else shared their good ideas (we might be adding a few things to our list) , we anxiously waited another hour to meet the boys for real. 

Then things got a little crazy.

Lauren wrote our blog address down on a subway ticket from DC, which I proudly handed to Jonnie, then hugged him; which is currently making the top ten best things to ever happen to me in my brief sixteen years. 


Then Lauren, with some extreme superhuman confidence, walked up to Duncan Penn, gave him her number and used "the line". Yes, the line from House Bunny that has been awkwardly sitting on our list for quite some time. 

"Oh my gosh, your biceps are huge, kiss me!" 

and he did. 

I am so proud to call her my sister. 

But honestly, if any of you amazing boys ever read this, we just want to say thank you. You are the reason we have this blog, here is the first post to prove it. We made this just after we saw you guys on Oprah. We don't actually watch Oprah, but we made time. You are the reason we are crossing stuff off our list. You are the reason we are living our lives to the fullest. After all, today is the youngest we'll ever be. 

Hi Jonnie. :)

Cheers,

Cayla and Lauren

It took me an hour to write this

Last night I was about to crack open The Great Gatsby and finish reading the first chapter. I have already read it and I really liked it so I wasn't worried about the suicidal feeling that usually accompanies the reading of my school books (When we were reading The Grapes of Wrath I was 50 pages into one chapter with 30 more to go and I started crying and threw the book across the room because I hated it so much). But I didn't get around to actually reading until much later, because Madelyn turned on Criminal Minds. Usually I could multi-task and read/watch at the same time, but this one was SO GOOD. It started with the team running into a house, JJ was unconscious on the floor. They start looking for Reid, but he is gone! Turns out he was kidnapped by some crazed murder who has 3 different personalties, one is the real him and he is nice, another is his crazy, super religious father, and the other is an "angel" which is the personalty that kills all the people! Then he started giving Reid drugs and beating him, then he has a seizure and he is apparently dead!!!Then the nice personalty gives him CPR and he is saved!! In the end they find him, Reid shoots the guy, and all is happy! But then, Reid goes back and takes the drugs the guy was giving him! ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!?!?! I couldn't stop watching them! I watched all of the following episodes to see what would happen with the drugs, but there was only 2 more then this crappy show that Madelyn likes came on and I went to bed.
You see, I am addicted to crime dramas. CSIs mostly. I occasionally dabble in Law and Order, but that is usually equivalent to an hour long nap. I have seen every single episode of CSI: Las Vegas, except one, which I decided not to watch one day and then I just got tired of looking at it on my DVR so I deleted it. But literally, that show has been on for like 11 years and I have yet to come across an old episode that I have not seen. One year I spent the ENTIRE summer watching CSI reruns.

I know them all so well that they are pretty much my family. I cried like a baby when Grissom left. I really never got over it. I have refused to accept any new characters. If I met William Peterson, George Eads and Eric Szmanda I would gladly throw away the rest of our list and be the happiest person in the world (p.s. those are their real names. They are much too boring and hard to pronouce for a show, I mean Szmanda!? and how would you even begin to pronouce Eads?). 
But, my devotion was not true, because there were other CSIs out there that I was not watching! How could I miss out on all that murder, blood and gore? Simple answer: I could not. Set DVR to record, select every rerun you could find: I was hooked on CSI: NY.



this picture is adorable. <3

  Not only did it have Lieutenant Dan, I could match each character to a person in Las Vegas, but they were significantly less nerdy and consequently more BA. Plus Det. Don Flack (third one from the right) is totally dreamy. Danny (third form the left) was pretty cool until Lindsey (demon in brown next to him) came and they fell in love and had a baby and now they just generally annoy everyone. Stella (in pink) left but I didn't really like her and her replacement in comparable in annoyness so it isn't that bad.
So now I was getting my fix twice a week, but that was still not enough. Introducing CSI: Miami.

They have had like a million cast changes. Probably due to its extreme popularity for a while and overly dramatic drama. This is the infamous sunglasses show. If I could be granted one CSI-related wish it would be for Natalia Boa Vista (far right) to die in some sort of firey explosion (and stay dead), so she would stop whining and putting my future boyfriend, Ryan Wolfe (next to her), in danger.
So I have all my CSIs, but THEN, one day, I saw a commercial for a NEW show. ABOUT CRIME! I couldn't be bothered with crap like NCIS or Hawaii Five-O, (which they are attempting to bring back for some unknown and stupid reason and replaced CSI: Miami with on Wednesdays and moved Miami to Sundays, whatevs), but this show was looking awesome. And of course, I was right. Make way for: The Mentalist.

Dashing Australian guy (You know how I feel about Australians) coupled with a cast of mudfences to make him even more attractive and one guy that looks like Michael Buble? I'll take that! Plus the main character, Patrick Jane is MEAN! And it's awesome. He has that whole cynical, hating the world outlook that I occasionally adopt (I mean he has a reason to, his family was murdered by a serial killer, but still), so we could totally hang out. He used to be a "Physic" and he would fake people out becasue he was actually just really observant, and he now tricks people into admitting they committed crimes. It is really a fantastic show and you should totally watch it.
For a while, those were my only shows, but, as you already know, I am now hooked on Criminal Minds. I usually didn't watch this show, because it made my mom mad because she thought it would scare me, but after 6 years of CSI, it takes kind of a lot to scare me (Although I will admit to being scared occasionally). But, as mentioned earlier, we only got like 3 actual entertainment channels in Georigia, so we watched a lot of A&E, which shows Criminal Mids reruns!

Which you know because it is actually really really scary. But then, you will stop and wonder, Cayla, you are telling me about all these crime shows, how am I supposed to know when I flip to a channel whether or not it is Criminal Minds? You will know because of this guy:

This is Dr. Spencer Reid, he's really smart and can read super fast. So he is just like me! (totally kidding, he is an actual genius, I am not) Who I was talking about wayyyy at the beginning of this blog. He is the most recognizable character on that that show, or at least I think so. Whenever I would switch to some random channel, I would always wonder which of the 152456286299 crime dramas I was watching, then this kid would pop up and I would always know its Criminal Minds. I still never found out what happened with him and the drugs. I guess I will just have to watch it again tonight :) :) :)
So there you have it, all this time you were thinking that I only have an addiction to the internet and I am healing through the power of God's wrath. But no, much longer ago, through the power of DVR, I had been sucked into the world of crime drama. But, do me a favor, next time one of these shows is on, and you have nothing to do, watch it, because I know you will love. But seriously, check the info on the Criminal Minds episode before you watch it, especially if you are about to go to bed, that show can churn up some pretty terrifying fever dreams, trust me. I'm off to go watch a new episode of CSI: Miami! yayy

Cheers,
Cayla
Future Crime Scene Investigator

that awkward time I almost forgot a huge thing in my life

Right now I'm sitting at the bottom of my bed with my feet at the top on the pillows, hair pulled into a pony tail, listening to some indie music. I should probably glance out my window at the buzzing, glowing city below and reflect on my life, and blog something like "And that's when I realized that it's not the things that we have that make us happy, but the things that we strive for. And if there's one thing that New York City has taught me, it's to never stop striving until you've reached your dream." (This all of course would be read aloud in a voice-over as I smirked in contentment of a lesson well-learned.) Then I would hit "post", shut my computer, and crawl under the blankets. The camera would pan out as I turned off my light and fall asleep smiling about how great my life had become because of dramatic but comical experiences. Then as the camera glided out the window and showed the cityscape, the credits would start to roll as some inspirational but upbeat song played.

Am I right?

I was thinking that I hadn't written anything lately, and when I pulled this up that's what I thought of. Do I watch too much tv? Yes. But as Cayla and I were just discussing, if we're going to write a book about our lives and still be young enough to play us in the movie adaption, we need to take notice of things like this. So if you're watching our movie in about five years and it ends like that, now you'll know why. By the way, I'm not actually in New York, but that's where all inspirational comedies about young women realizing their worth and talents take place, so I thought it'd be a nice touch. 

Alright that's all I have to say, especially since typing is kind of a challenge with a wrist brace. omgz whaat wrist brace?! lolz. okay bye

cheers,

lauren

OH MY GOD. 

i almost forgot this until I said cheers. 

THE BURIED LIFE. ASU. THURSDAY.

cayla & I can now die happy. just kidding, because we still have 700 things to cross off our list. but we'll be pretty close to being okay with dying at anytime after thursday. this is getting a little morbid. all I'm saying is that it's going to be AWESOME. epic/amazing/cool/sweet/sick etc. I am now going to stop before I say anything creepy, and once they meet us & become extremely interested in our blog we wouldn't want to scare them off. time to delete some old posts... just kidding. but srsly, I can't believe they're actually coming. I don't think it'll hit me until we're actually there, and I'm also going to ignore that that last sentence was a super that's what she said sentence. 

alright for real this time,

cheers, lauren <3

oh my lanta!

over spring break I went to atlanta:

we stayed at a hotel in the cnn world headquarters:

view from our balcony, which was indoors

and madelyn fell in love with anderson cooper:

we also went on a tour of the cnn headquarter, but it was not really that cool. We went to the georgia aquarium and we saw a whale shark!!! remember me talking about that? here it is:

soo sweet!!

we also saw penguins:

close encounters

they had this crawl tank and you could crawl through the tank and see the penguins up closee!

they also had a touch tank:

<3 <3 <3

we went to the world of coke! it was really sweet!

we tried tons of different sodas from all the different continents!

some were not very delicious:

like this one: 

Beverly is a demon drink created by demons

But I have big news! On the way home from Atlanta, I wanted to die (that is not the big news). I had a terrible cold, I was exhausted, I have to write a paper for school and I seriously wanted to murder every member of my family. So my dad decided to make it up to us! Number 73 off the list!! We flew first class!! It was so lovely, having all that elbow and leg room and food! It is weird considering I have like a million pictures of everything, but I actually didn't take any pictures. I guess I was just really tired! But that is the highlights of Georgia, I'm not going to bore you with all the boring details of this "awesome" vacation. So I will just leave it at this!

Cheers,

Cayla

WHALE SHARK!!!!!!!!