Meet Karen

This is my friend Karen. Well, really she's my Mom's friend- and I happen to be more of an extended friend. You know the kind- my Mom's the connection here. But had I met Karen first, we'd still be friends without the Mom connection. I'm just drawn to her like that.

So today we had great lunch and great convo and she mentioned something about my blog. It doesn't show my "culture diverse side". Or the fact that I have too many friends of other races other than white (although, most everyone on here is my family!)... black/African American friends, Latinos, Asians... I don't think she saw my Epic Asia Trip 2007 blog- if I made one or not, I'm not sure?! I'll have to do a blog about that sometime! Plus all the many other races of people in the world. So seeing as I've lived/traveled all over world and with lots of different types of people, from many nations and of many races, I guess it doesn't seem to show on my blog? Sad. I'm living in a white bread world!?!?

So I've decided to make Karen my "token" black friend on my blog, for the time being! Love ya Karen! oh, and a hilarious blog about white people having black/Asian friends... check this site out! It has TONS & TONS of other funny topics...

A very unflattering picture of myself. Karen and my Mom look fine tho, ugh. This was taken at a Mother's Day party that Karen threw at her house... good times! LOOK! We're like and OREO, but backwards!
Here she is with Meriel, Pat's Mom. Isn't she pretty! Karen is also one of the most friendly/loving people I've ever met: )
Here she is at the bottom of the picture talking to Pat's Mom, she's so nice!... and that's her husband across from her, or the only other black person at he table! They're a cute couple!

A first...

So this is my first summer here in Arizona... I would never recommend summers here to anyone. They suck. Period. Well, mainly because the AC in my car is OUT! And I'm not willing to throw down a $1000 bucks to get it fixed. (I don't think my car is worth much more than that anyways). Bitter, you ask? HELL YEAH! Perhaps because I feel like I AM IN HELL WHEN I DRIVE ANYWHERE!

ANYWAYS... getting the point of this blah blah blooooog entry...

So Arizona has this thing called "Monsoon Season" that happens towards the end of summer. Weird, I know. But really, we do. It will be about a thousand degrees during the day, and then all of a sudden (usually later in the afternoon to night time) the clouds roll in and it just DOWN POURS, seemingly out of nowhere. I love it. It washes away all the dust and cools down the whole place- also making it a bit humid and flooding everything in the mean time. O-well.

And tonight was NO exception. DOWN POUR it was. Except tonight we had a LIGHTING SHOW! And I must say, tonight I experienced one of the most amazing lighting shows ever! (Better than the one's I used to see in Utah as a kid- UT does have some pretty good lighting storms tho). I love watching lighting to begin with, there's something SO amazing seeing the whole sky light up... you hear the sky roll with thunder and "CRACK" you see lighting dancing from one end of the valley to the other end, keeping the sky lit for several seconds!

While driving home tonight I could have turned my headlights off and gotten home just fine, the lighting was that bright and happening that often! And you know it's a great storm when you're driving home and there's a MASSIVE split-in-half tree that's fallen in the road because it was struck by lighting! Exciting!!!

Now I didn't see the tree being hit by lighting, but this is what I would imagine it to look like! Also, this is the closest picture I could find to compare with what the sky looked like... it was SO bright! I'm obviously really excited about this... I am such a dork!

All in 48 hours! Oh, and tons of pictures!

I hate the fact that I've been home just shy of a year from the Epic Asia Trip 2007 and haven't gone and done anything fun since returning (in the way of exploring new countries that is)... okay, so I take that back....
...although I have been going a little stir crazy here in AZ, I've been able to travel just a LITTLE bit... there was the fabulous Buffalo/New York City trip that my friend James and I took over spring break this last year. Yeah, that's about it. Period.

The only other place I go when leaving the fine state of Arizona.... is UTAH! If it weren't for these kiddos/family members... I doubt I'd ever make it up there... So I was just up in Utah... for about a full 2 days... booo, not long enough to play with my cute little sibs or meet up with other family... but here's a few pictures of what I did get to do and who I got to see. But the real reason for the quick trip was to see my other little brother William off- as he's going on his mission! YAY for BILLIAM! He's going to make a FABULOUS missionary: ) (I have the cutest brothers ever!)

My G-Bob!!! I LOVE this kid... he's SO cute and growing up WAY too fast
As his sister, I, Courtney C. Brown, am proud to say I got him to do this with the hose... lol, couldn't help it! He thought it was too funny!
...and then there was The Monster Girl, otherwise known as Ashby. So I hear I was "just like her" when I was younger...?! Whatev, don't believe it! Yes, she's on time-out...lol
Ashby's also one of the sweetest little girls ever... she wouldn't leave my jewlery alone tho... we were best friends after I gave it to her to play with- and you can see how happy she is here
Ashby and I danced around the kitchen... it's so cute, she totally gets into it and gets a very serious face, as seen here!
A tickling fight that left Gentry on the floor... seriously, he kept egging me on, like he was going to win or something?!
My super duper cute hermanos... Will (the missionary) & Andrew
Hanging out with the cute Dastic girls, Natalie and Kate... they're a family from EDH. It was nice to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while
Will with some of the family that made it up to hear him give his mission farewell talk
And of course my friend "Brown Suga" Megan Reber! Hottie! Love this girl... first time seeing her in about 4 years... she wrote me ALL the time on the mission- what a great friend!

I'm totally addicted to...

...this freaking cool you tube video! I don't know why... Maybe it's the long hair the guys are sporting? The song they chose to play? (GO 80's butt rock band "Europe"!) Or perhaps it's the teen-head-banging (flash back-flash back!) while playing such classical instruments? Regardless of the fact that they're off tune a bit... they absolutely ROCK!
But none-the-less I heart this video... makes me wish I could play the violin that's sitting in the corner of my room... *sigh* Enjoy!

I'm Famous!

So check it... I was at work one day and I see this guy I totally recognize walking around... from where I couldn't place him, but I knew him! So when he passed by my desk I made sure to look at him. He pointed at me and said, "Hey, I know you! You're going to be in my commercial!" UMM WHAAAAAAAT?! So after chit-chatting with him for a minute we figured out that I used to work for his brother when I first moved to Arizona... about 5 years ago! He owns his own movie making company and was using office space in his brothers building, and so we worked in the same area. So we got caught up, he now has added to his fmaily, with an extra kid (or two?!) Oh and one of his daughters is named Courtney! Cool, eh?!

This is me being famous! Or making a face like I think famous people should make, riiiiight?!?
SO ANYWAYS, he now works for a company called jobbing.com, you might have heard of them, they're kidda a big deal. SO he was there making a commercial for our "new" center and he put me in it! YAY! I'm FAAAAAAMOUS! Well, not until I can find the dang commercial! BUT once I do, I'll be posting it, that's for sure! I just thought you'd all like to know... about my first commercial! I think this is my big break into showbiz guys! Lol.

Mom/Peri's 50th Birthday Surprise!

Surprise Birthday Parties are the BEST! No joke. Especially when they're NOT for you, but someone else- and they have NO IDEA! Well, for Peri's 50th this year Pat planned a BIG surprise dinner for Peri at PF Changs (mmmmm, mmmm!) inviting all her closest friends and family that reside here in Arizona.

Here's a little play-by-play on how the surprise went:

So while Pat arranged and get everyone to PF's, I worked my magic and got Mom/Peri to come out with me to go shopping. Now we all know that this isn't a hard task to complete... she's a born shopper... and I follow in her foot steps diligently! The issues were that we wanted her to BE ON TIME for dinner (which is hard for her to do sometimes, well, most of the time!) and I had to work, blah! So I've not really cared for work these days... and decided it was an "emergency-day-off or I'll-go-crazy" sort of day and called in "sick". Whatever, moving on.

I called Peri that morning saying that I wanted to take her out for her birthday- dinner and a movie....sorta boring, but totally worth the fib. We met up and shopped around a bit... didn't find any clothes... and were about to leave, but I still had to keep her "busy" for another 10-15 minutes or so. SO off to the purses we went! I found a fabulous purse and earrings that I just couldn't live with out, thank goodness we still had 10 minutes to look around! She wanted to go to the mall, but I in turn said I was STARVING and had a hankering for lettuce wraps... SOOO GOOD!

So we showed up at PF, she dropped me off to put our name in, so she could go park. One of her best friends walked in RIGHT after me... so she ran to sit down, very CLOSE CALL! I told the hostess that we were there and be ready to walk us to the party table! A minute later Peri walks in, there's TONS of people waiting to be sat, but the hostess walks us right in (Peri seemed a bit surprised that we didn't have to wait!!) and walks us up to a couple of tables full of her friends and family!

She was SHOCKED to say the least! SHE HAD NO IDEA! It was fabulous! I yelled SUUURPRISE! We all cheered! She started crying! Then she started pointing at Pat saying, "YOOOOU! You're gonna get it!" or "I can't believe YOU did this!" And the evening turned out great... here's pictures of everyone there:

Still in SHOCK Peri, thanking everyone!
BFF: Craig Smith & Peri Hammons
Pete & Karen Smyth, the outta towners!
A very cute picture of Mom... Shae and Perry too!