And the winners are...

...Brent & Heidi!

(who happen to know each other! how cool!)

Your packages will be mailed on Friday, guys...thanks for the blogaversary wishes!

And everyone else who commented, thanks for the wishes and the stories and stuff! Please keep reading and linking to us, and your postcards are on their way!

(Jill, I'm sending you a consolation prize cuz I vote for Pedro!)

PS: I am so sorry to have missed THIS broadcast today (did any of you hear it?)

I will listen online when I get a sec...

(Scroll Down for lots of new stuff)

Hooray! Life In A Northern Town turns 4 TODAY!...

how will we celebrate?

I think everyone should get presents, so here's my proposal:

• (1) Since I collect postcards, I'd LOOOOVE to see some in my mailbox over the next week! I know that postage has just gone up and it's asking a lot, but all I want for my blog-a-versary is POSTCARDS FROM EVERYWHERE! (and it doesn't have to be a "place" postcard--I love art ones, cartoons, and handmade postcards, too). I'll post the pretty pictures here and I can promise you a fabulous Montana postcard in return if you care to share your address or PO Box with me! Here's my office address:

Jamie c/o Melin Agency/ 1016 W. Park St./ Livingston, MT 59047

• (2) Leave a comment telling me about your favorite post(s) from the past 4 years (I realize that I need to take advantage of Blogger's new labeling system and categorize my archives, but I got these kids to raise and I'm adjusting to my new Primary calling...it's on my to-do list). My favorite commenter(s) (is there more than one?) will receive a FABULOUS white elephant gift with something thoughtful pertaining to your comment via USPS shipped on June 1st.

Stay tuned for more birthday celebration with posts like, "Where Are They Now?: People Mentioned in My Very First Post" and "On This Date in History: What I Was Doing on Other May 19th's"--sure to be entertaining.

Other May 19ths: Final Installment

May 19, 1985: Sunday, 10pm- I am going out with Ben and it's so great. We've gotten a lot closer over the past week. Since Friday night we have talked on the phone for 11 hours. He's super nice! Gotta go to sleep, more later. Love, Jamie [Oh my heck, the end of 8th grade! When going out meant talking on the phone and holding hands in the hall! Oh, and sitting by each other on the bus to California to sing at Disneyland and Sea World with the Pioneers of Music]



May 20, 1992: ..."Jill and Dana are coming to visit me on 5/23. I still have to work at the elementary school until June 8th, but I am hoping they will still have fun with bus passes and sneaking into the Palace." [Jill was 12 and Dana had just turned 14...Jill: I can't believe you guys stayed that long and I didn't even have TV or anything for you to do!! I forgot you were with me for 2 weeks!]



May 19, 1987: "This weekend something weird happened. I think I have found a new object for my affections. My Aaron is leaving soon, and so as not to be devastated I have been on a half-hearted quest for another sensitive and loving boyfriend. At the last dance that Aaron couldn't attend, I danced with his friend Dan a lot and saw him in a whole new light. He's always been really good to me and I have always liked him, but I have always been with Aaron. Hmmm...

"Today has started out great. The past few days have been the most fun I've had in a long time. Last night I had tech rehearsal for Music Under the Stars. Tim Pollard drove me home and he's really fun to drive with. I went over to Susie's at 8pm. We watched TV and things she recorded for me and goofed around. Her mom went to feed the horse and said she would be right back to take me home, but then her truck broke down. Su's bro, Dave, had to drive me home and I got home at 12:30am on a school night. Mom was just getting home from work, and she just laughed when I told her what happened. Today was great, too. I got my paycheck but hadn't cashed it. Tim needed to borrow some lunch money so I told him if he took me to the bank I'd just buy him some lunch. We ended up having to drive over a mile with two minutes til the lunch bell and Tim shoved a whole Whopper down his throat. He also threw some tomatoes out his window and one slice landed on someone's windshield. We almost died laughing. Tonight was Music Under the Stars, but it was raining so it moved from he amphitheatre to the gym. We all dressed up 1940's. It was so fun and so energetic. Our final was the MoTab version of "Battle Hymn" and my favorite songs were "Chattanooga ChooChoo" and "Somethin's Gotta Give" (I learned it from an Ella Fitzgerald tape). I didn't have to sing formally like I usually do--I got to create a character and bounced around like a little 40's teenager (my Grandma?). This coming weekend I am going to Phoenix to visit Lisa Reed and Brent Gardner and I am flying up there by myself. I can't wait!" [All I can say is WTH? Life at 15-1/2 is pretty hilarious. I can't believe all the stuff I did...nuts. I'm still friends with Susan, and I saw the Dan I mentioned in the first paragraph in 1999 in an elevator at the U of A whenI went to pickup a transcript. He was doing the same thing --for med or dental or some kind of grad school--and had a family and stuff. He asked about Susan and said he'd always meant to date me and was bummed when he came home form his mission and I had gone away to Provo. Ya snooze, ya lose, Danny Boy...]

Here and here and here and here you can see some past blogs from the week of May 19th in 2005 & 2006 (I was too post-partum-ish in 2004 to blog, I think).

I'm checking the mailbox for postcards...

Other May 19th's: First Installment

This one is dedicated to Cousin Brent!

1998: Leading up to May 19, 1998, I had just graduated from the U of A with my Bachelor's degree on May 16th and had a party celebrating my graduation and my cousin Larkin's 13th birthday at Grandma Elrey's house. That afternoon, I kidnapped Cousin Brent and we headed down to San Carlos, Mexico with the McRae kids to stay at their condo. Here are some of my favorite journal excerpts from that trip:

"At 3pm, Brent and I headed over to meet Maren at the townhouse. We picked up Ric and Shawndi and headed down to Tubac to get Matt and Wyatt. Ric and Maren took Ric's truck, so I got to drive the Suburban--I love it! On the way out of Tucson, Brent and I stopped at Circle K to experience our first Laughable Disaster of the trip All the cash I had was 2- $100 from graduation, so I sent Brent into the K to get me a Diet Coke and bottled water. He came back and we drank it up, only to discover onehour later that Brent had been shortchanged by $83! EIGHTY-THREE BUCKS, people! All I could do is laugh, although it sucked to lose that much money." (To Brent's amazing credit, he felt so bad, he wrote me a check for $83 when it really wasn't his fault).

"I woke at 11:00am on Sunday and went out to the beach with Brent, where we sat on little beach chairs and read our scriptures and wrote in our journals or to missionaries [Sam] adn enjoye the breath-taking view...San Carlos and the mountains to the right, the sand bar and the little island to the left. The water was the softest shade of sea green and the sand was almost white, but upon closer examination was mulit-colored like Suddenyl Salad seasoning. Matt & Wyatt came out about an hour later and we built sandcastles and talked....later [that night] we decided to have a fireside on the beach." (We did have the fireside, remember, Brent? Matt built the fire and everyone shared a thought and Ric--who wasn't baptized yet--felt the spirit, and was baptized 5 months later. That was awesome).

So that brings us to the wee ours of May 19, 1998, as we were driving home from Mexico:

"We drove home pretty uneventfully until we got to Nogales and all of the gas stations were closed. Matt decided we could make it to Green Valley, so we hauled up there and 6km from the exit, teh Suburban began to shudder. Matt put on the hazard lights and soon a sherriff pulled us over and offered to escort us to a gas station. So Super Matt got us within 50 yards of a gas station and he and Brent had to puch us across the street to the pumps where the car died. Another narrowly averted Laughable Disaster! When we finally got to the townhouse, Matt was locked out, so he looked for the spare key in Maren's car and accidentally left her dome light on when he locked it and still no house keys. finally he jiggled the sliding glass door and we got in and crashed. I was thinking Matt might be a lucky charm because all our challenges just turned out to be funny."

Where Are They Now?

If you click here to read my very first post on this incarnation of my blog, you may wonder what the people mentioned there are doing now. Well, here's the answer:

1. Addie was 18 months old. Now she's 5-1/2, finishing up pre-school, excited for Kindergarten at Winans School, member of the all-girl CTR-6 class (6 girls!) at church, can make several meals/snacks on her own (ramen, nachos, PBJ, lemon bars), is a fabulous big sister, and is my mini-me! We have so much fun and I LOVE watching her grow up.

2. Coincidentally, we saw Abby and Lynzee for the first time in about 3 years last Sturday at their Uncle Geoff's graduation from MSU (they live in Oregon now). We hope to see them again when their grandparents com ehome from thier mission to Croatia.

3. Grandma Lyn is still with us, thank heaven, and she still keeps me connected with my AZ peeps. She recently turned 76 but doesn't look a day over 60. She is still one of my best friends, and she clips all of the Sunday coupons and mails them to me each week with a note. I LOVE that, even though I feel guilty for only using 3-4 coupons at a time. I love her notes and recently purchased a lovely hat box in which to keep them. Most of the time when I update this blog, I do it for gram & gramp (and all the other g'rents who check the blog to keep in touch).

4. That "new baby" Ryley just turned 4, just like my blog, and she is FANTASTIC! If I ever saw a real living "SPRITE," she's it. Ryley is a big sister now to Ben and Olivia, adn her Auntie Maren in a mom now to Morgan. Check out Ryley on her mom's blog here, and more fun Mayberry footage here at Brent's blog.

5. I was getting ready to go visit my mother in Missouri in that first post (which I won't be doing again for AT LEAST two years), and she is still there after four years, much to everyone's chagrin. Mom's got her own blog now, and that bathroom we helped frame up 4 years ago is almost done! I loves me mum!

In my second post, I talked about my struggle to assimilate to my teeny tiny redneck town. I believe I have found my niche and gotten comfortable here--not so much assimilating as accepting. A lot of the comfort has to do with treating my life like a misison and learning to bloom where I am planted. Now, I don't claim to be a vibrant rosebush or anything, but I think I can safely say I'm at least a brave little wildflower, trying to keep my face to the sun (even in the snow!). I really love our life here and I am everso grateful for what I am becoming here.