Shout-Out to the Saz

Oh how I love visitors!!! I had the immense pleasure this week of seeing one of my long-lost BFFs, Shannon (aka Sazzy), whom I haven't seen in three years. Shannon was attending Georgetown when I was attending GW, so she and I saw each other at church and at YSA FHE's and at Institute classes (does that make any sense to the non-Mormons in the house?) and at all those other fun things, and naturally, we became good friends. Unfortunately, we've only seen each other once since I graduated from college (right after she moved to Provo, which was also right before Tim and I left). I say that we naturally became friends; here are just some of the reasons why I love the Saz:

-She is so easy to talk to, and therefore she makes people feel exceedingly comfortable in her presence. (Seriously. I could just as easily confide in her that I'm checking myself into a mental hospital -- which I'm not, don't worry -- as I could tell her that I had oatmeal for breakfast.)
-She is SO NICE. There is perhaps a smattering of people in my life who have truly struck me by their kindness. She is one of them.
-She is an immensely strong and faithful person. She served an 18-month mission to Brazil, and then returned to work at the MTC and become Relief Society President in her ward. I know that those are outward manifestations, but I know too that inside there is a very bright flame.
-She is exceptionally smart (she'll soon be working on her Master's in mechanical engineering).
-Going along with the above point, she is nevertheless astoundingly humble. (I'm not sure whether she realizes how awesome she is and chooses not to acknowledge it, or she just doesn't know. Maybe the latter.)
-She is excellent with children. (I wouldn't even think twice about leaving Weston with her for an extended period of time. She might, though.)
-She is delightfully funny (in both that she cracks jokes, and that she also brings about quite a bit of unintentional hilarity).

So, hopefully you're getting the picture about Shannon. Over the past week, she and two of her younger sisters took a mini-tour of California, complete with beach camping and city roving. They stopped by Pasadena for a quick visit with yours truly (yaaaaaaaay!), and I snapped a few pictures of the hijinks that ensued:

Here are Audrey, Shannon, and Laurel, when I asked them to pose for a nice, sisterly picture:
However, one of them (not naming names here, just saying the word Audrey) got a little cheeky during my photo shoot, which resulted in a lot of cracking up:

And finally, here's the nice, sisterly picture that I was hoping to get:

(I forgot to mention another favorite thing about Shannon. She - and her sisters, for that matter - are excellent subjects for photographs. They'll do anything, and they don't care if they look weird. That made it easy for me, because I usually prefer really goofy pictures of my friends.)

Anyway, we also got a very nice Shannon-and-Jean shot:

And then it was time to hit the town! First I took them to King Taco, one of Tim's and my favorite haunts:

Then we strolled around Old Town and looked at the shops. Along the way, a dude from ABC stopped us and asked if we'd like to be on a new show that they're airing. Apparently, it's something about answering people's everyday questions, so he asked us if we could come up with a question that we'd like answered. I went first and said, "I'm Jean from Pasadena, and I'd like to know how to get my toddler to stop hitting me!" (Yeah... if anyone has advice, you know what to do.) Shannon decided to go on camera too, and she asked her question about schooling while I snapped a picture. Brilliant, Shannon, brilliant!!

This was a girl's day out (+ Weston), so of course we had to do some serious shopping. We stopped at H&M:

Shannon and Audrey browsed the goods while Laurel and I (mostly Laurel - bless you) watched and chased and played with the Weston-Blur as he ran around the racks:

Weston did a little browsing of his own (with some style advice from Shannon):

Then (obviously) I took them to Dots Cupcakes. (FYI, everyone who visits me here will go to Dots Cupcakes. Danny C, we were sadly short on time, but that's even more reason for you to move to CA!). Another fabulous pose with the girls:

We wandered over to One Colorado to sit and devour our cupcakes, and I had to snap this picture of the pretty flags hanging overhead (which is totally unrelated to Shannon and her sisters, making for a slightly anti-climactic conclusion to this blog post):

Haha! But really, it was a wonderful time! I loved meeting Laurel and Audrey, and I loved seeing my Sazzy again. Until next time, girls!!! :-)