Zac Attack

Just wanted to give a shout-out to this cute ball of fat ^^. Baby Zac-y turned 1 yesterday! Being in Utah I hardly get to see him, but I seriously miss/love this baby SOOOOOOOOO much. I love his temperament, he's always so happy. I love his blue eyes. I love his biiiig smile. I love his fat cheeks, and his even fatter legs. I love his long, wispy hair. I love his laugh. I seriously just love him, and I miss him a ton.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZAC.

George

There's this elderly man named George who comes into the gym every morning. He refuses to get set up on "cardless check-in" (people who refuse this service are difficult, because it means I have to manually check them in each day). Anyways, each and every day he walks in, hands me his drivers license, refuses any attempt at small talk, and carries on. I greet him every day, and say bye to him every day as well. I don't greet or say goodbye to every guest by name, but because of how cold George is to me I do it out of principle; I want to see how long it takes to crack him and get him to warm up to me.
Well, ladies and gentlemen (more like Cassie and Laura), today was the day! George came in and I greeted him as usual, and he left and I said "bye George", as usual. The difference is that a minute later I noticed George park his car in front of the gym, get out, and start talking to my manager. George and my manager walked up to the front desk where George asked my name. I told him, and he proceded to tell my manager how nice I am, and how I do such a great job. He said that he had been purposefully acting cold for a few weeks now to see how the staff would act (seriously though?) and that I always handled it so well, and I continued to be nice to him, check him in quickly, and always remember his name.
Yes, I'm tooting my own horn right now, but it was so nice to finally get through to this man! Seriously, there are a few people at the gym who I can't get to be friendly to me, and it's annoying. I felt victorious when George finally warmed up and was kind back to me. Actually I got super embarrased and started blushing, but afterwards it was nice.

Kill 'em with kindness people!

ALL About Eli

I know I have 3 other nephews and 1 niece, and yes I love them and miss them a lot, but I'm dedicating this post to Eli because I haven't seen him in SO LONG. It's been almost 5 months now. I went from living with this precious little boy, seeing him every day, to now not seeing him since January. It literally makes me cry sometimes to look at pictures or videos of him.
I miss seeing him in the mornings when I would come downstairs for work and he'd be watching cartoons (laura sleeping on the couch) and I would make breakfast and he'd always come sit on my lap and have bites of my eggs and toast. When I walked in the door after being gone for a while he would yell "NIE NIE" and give me a hug. I miss his dance parties at night before bed. I miss waking up to him slowly creeping open my bedroom door saying "nie nie?" and coming up on my bed. I miss his fat fat legs and cheeks, I miss his sweet little voice, I miss his tantrums, and his asian hair.
When I think about him or look at videos or pictures of him my heart feels so heavy. I need to see him. I NEEEEED to hold him and hug him and kiss him and hear him talk to me. So much so that I'm going to either pay $600 to fly to Boston to see him, or go home to California the next time he's there.

Laura and Mike, why don't you guys quit being so selfish and bring Eli back to the west coast where he belongs.

I LOVE this video. I laugh so hard whenever I watch it. At the end, Eli thinks Laura is taking a picture so he comes up and smiles at the camera. With his new asian hair cut. Ohh Eri.

It's Been a While.

I've been out of the blogging world for quite sometime now. It's weird because lately I've had more to blog about than ever before, which is probably why I've been MIA-too busy. I moved to Denver, came home, went travelling around Europe, moved to Utah...too much to catch up on now. I'm ready to tackle the world of blogging again; this time it'll be more journal-esque entries than anything else so most of you probably won't be interested in reading. My mind is going a million miles a minute these days so I have to find some way to organize my thoughts.

First things first. I have a list of tasks I want/need to accomplish before the year is up. Maybe if I post it online where everyone can read, I'll be more inclined to do it all.

In no particular order:

1. Family reunion in Boston

2. Trip to Washington

3. Back too Murrrrda to see my new baby niece/nephew

4. Go somewhere cool for my birthday-Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Moab

5. Australia! I need another trip abroad, I'm craving it so bad. Australia seems the acceptable compromise between taking 3 months off to travel Europe again, and not doing anything at all.

6. Brandon- he gets home in December, gotta figure that one out

7. Get at least 15 credits done for my Associates. May not seem like a lot, but I am NOT school-focussed these days, so I need to take baby steps. I'm much more interested in travel and doing basically whatever I want right now; but I need to get on the ball

8. Make application video for the Amazing Race

9. Plan my next big backpacking trip. Destinations include: Ireland OR Eastern Europe OR Thailand

10. Run a 10K

Basically, I gots things ta do. It's going to require a lot of money saving, work, and patience.

On a side note: as I'm writing this post, Violet walks in my room and sits on my lap. GOODNESS how I miss this little girl while I'm away. Love her to death.

Jana's 21st!

My BFF Jana had her 21st in April..HUZZAH!!!

To celebrate we:
Stayed in Huntington for the night after hitting the beach all day..
Went to dinner at PF Changs...
Had cake at the hotel...

and had a Vegas-themed party,
I wiped em all out.


Love you Jana!

Look What I Found

I FINALLY uploaded pictures from my camera..it's seriously been about a year.
Anyways, I found some pictures that made me smile:


Me and Jana at Stagecoach last year! It was AMAZING. Me and Chaddy.
(He's smiling like this to be annoying)
"We're the three best friends that anyone could have"Me and Court on our trip to New York
a.k.a. concrete jungle where dreams are made of
At a Trevor Hall concert
I have a real crush on him and it makes me mad cause it'll never happen.Court and I went to Utah to visit some friends,
thanks Andrew, Jenna, and Q for letting us stay!

Seriously though, I'm obsessed with Texas Roadhouse.
If you live near one, go and order the Portabella Mushroom Chicken, with a house salad, and a sweet potato for your sides.
You won't be disappointed.

Pretty Pretty Princess

I'm allowed to say that Violet is my favorite girl in the whole wide world, and that she's my favorite niece, and I'm allowed to post a blog ALL about her-

because she's the only princess in our family.
(besides me)

Violet with her new "Julie Andrews" hair cut.

So cute I wanna pinch her cheeks!

V is obsessed with my makeup bag

She got jealous of her baby brothers hat, so she made us put it on her instead-
hence the elf look.

There's just something so special about little girls.

Don't get crazy, I still love Johnny Jay Eli and Zac.

Seriously?

Seems a bit dangerous to me.

3SOME

PREFACE: Brandon is in a tri-companionship right now. There is an odd number of elders in his mission, so his mission president put the oddball in with Brandon and his companion.

Anyways, he wrote me a letter that said this:

"Being in a threesome is challenging at times but also can be enjoyable."

That's what she said.

Anniversary?

Brandon and I started dating in Austin a couple years ago. He being the salesman that he is, just assumed the sale, instead of having a DTR with me to find out if I even WANTED to be "official". Well, lucky for him I'd had a crush on him since my freshman year in high school, so I wasn't complaining. Anyways, since we never had an official start, I go off of the day he kissed me, which was 2 years ago today. Well, first I dodged his kiss (I thought he was going for a hug, turned out I was wrong..and humiliated) But he went in for it a second time and got it.
He's been on his mission for almost 6 months now so I'm not sure if we're allowed to celebrate our 2 year anniversary, since technically we've only been together in person for a year and a half, but whatever.

This was on our 1 year. We were in Houston and the ONLY place that was open when he got off work was Chilis-woohoo. But, it's better than where he's taking me this year...

I love how little he looks. This was the first picture we ever took together. It was 4th of July in Austin and I was SO nervous to ask him to take a picture
(good thing my best friend's mom is a photographer)


Cabo cruise! We went on an excursion up in some mountains riding off-roading jeeps, hence the bandanas.
Galveston, last year. Definitely not California beaches, but we didn't get in the water so it's okay.
And now my little missionary man! I'm so proud of him, he's absolutely loving it out in Idaho, if you were wondering. Crazy to think that by the time he gets home we'll have been apart longer than we've been together. It's so funny looking back on the first few weeks of our relationship knowing what I know now. I was paranoid that he was going to stop liking me, and I analyzed EVERYTHING he did and said. But it was worth all the stress, he's an amazing person and I'm so lucky I got to spend so much time with him before he left on his mission.

HAPPY 2 YEARS BRANDON!

xoxo

ps. if anybody wants to take me out to dinner in place of Brandon, feel free.

BHOYT

I've been out of the blogging world for a while now, mainly because I have nothing to blog about. Well, I still don't.

I just wanted to share this picture:

I was looking at my online photo album and I caught a glimpse of this picture and it made my stomach drop. I forgot how much I miss his face!

Love his baby blues, and his cute nose, and his dimples, and cheekbones, and chisled jaw.

Okay I'm done obsessing, enjoy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA!!!!!

(I just love this picture of my sisters and I...we all are spacing out haha)

Today is Laura's Birthday, and what kind of sister would I be if I didn't post a "shout out" blog for her?

(...I'd be the Cassie kind, who doesn't do Happy Birthday posts...)

ANYWAYS I picked my 23 favorite reasons why I love Laura:

1. She is so blatantly honest it's hilarious

2. She's the most forgiving person I've EVER met

3. I've never known her to do a bad thing in her entire life, seriously.

4. She's the farthest thing from a hypocrite

5. She'd give you the shirt off her back without thinking twice

6. Joke improver.

7. Tells the most ridiculously lame stories (sorry Laura) but that just makes them even more funny

8. Amazing mom. I love Eli to death, but I don't know anyone else who could have put up with him from 0-5 months

9. She's the most patient person I know

10. Growing up she would ALWAYS let me hang out with her and her friends when I was a loser and had nothing to do

11. When we were little, if I got scared she would let me sleep in her bed and hold my hand

12. Morris and Morris Detective Company: We'll Solve Any Crime By Dinner Time!

(yes we copied Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen)

13. She's the best secret keeper

14. Never goes back on her word

15. Can always make the best out of any situation

16. She has perfectly shaped eyes, lips, cheekbones, and nose..and doesn't even know it

17. Lets me use her computer/anything whenever I ask

18. She is always watching out for me, even if sometimes it's overbearing and annoying

19. It rarely happens, but when she gets annoyed at someone it's really funny to watch her reactions

20. Doesn't give a crap what other people think

21. One night I was crying at work and she was on a date with her boyfriend (now husband) in Escondido, and she left and drove all the way home to bring me makeup..TRUE SISTER.

22. One of the funniest people I know (I say that about all my sisters, but it's true)

23. Even if she had none of the qualities above, she produced Eli, which is more than enough reason to love her forever

Happy 23 Birthday Laura!

You are by far my FAVORITE sister born on February 16th!