23 years and counting

On more than one occasion my siblings and i have voiced our amazement that all ten of us have made it to adulthood. In your family this might not seem like such a feat, but the Davis family always seems to get injured more often and do more stupid things than the average family. (if you haven't read the post on my family, read this post now. or read this one.)

Okay maybe it isn't that we do more intense things, but there is a litter of us so it only seems natural that our family would have been based on survival of the fittest. That surely means that one of us should have unintentionally killed another while being more fit. Well, i guess as the tithing child i am glad this wasn't the case...

Since yesterday i celebrated me being birthed 23 years ago, let's remind ourselves how the last 23 years looked, bad hair and all (all being HUGE glasses).

But before all that bad hair, please remember what I looked like yesterday-keep this is mind when the unfortunate photos come along... like that second one... (don't worry that in the course of one week two 'friends' told me that i was one of the most unfortunate looking children they had seen...)

2011                                                                      1988

Yes, i know, i looked like an 80 year old man straight out of the womb.

1988

i am pretty sure mallory was trying to kill me, not burp me...

1989

1990

1991

is this a foreshadow of Loon Lake disaster of 1998?!

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

 1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

and yet, 

somethings never change with age...

2010

15 days in and I still have a hard time remembering that the year is now 2011. i still remember walking to the Boise Depot from katie's house for the big 2000 new year's party. there is no way that was a decade ago...

there is no way i am old enough to say 'a decade ago'

so what memorable happened in 2010? well let me tell you...


I turned 22. this involved a party with sugar cookies made to look like me, a homemade photo booth, and these fantastic boys that let me have the party at their house.

I assisted celebrity photographer Brian Smith at Sundance and met Miss Universe...

i flew to TN and then drove to SC to watch Jojo run her first (canceled) marathon. 

Thank you Myrtle Beach, for all the snow...

I photographed many a thing, one of my favorites being the Festival of Colors.

i was playing with this lovable pup, Milo, and did this to my foot. Jenny lovingly referred to me as 'Cankalicious' for weeks that felt like months.

i went to boise a couple times, visited/photographed my family and best friends from childhood.

i actually briefly dated someone (we are much cuter individuals in real life) and upped my dating quota with going on second dates for the first time ever. (like real dates)

i went to Lake Powell with Jojo's hilarious family and mike's quad nephews. 

quite the adventure.

 i flew to Idaho to cheer on Uncle Rico, I mean Thor, I mean Aaron in his first IRON MAN!

i also discovered that one of my many God given talents is trophy embellishing.

i learned that writing your calendar/to do list on your mirror and leaving dry erase markers in your bathroom leads to lots of good facial hair being drawn next to your important tasks. 

meet my niece, teen wolf.

i spent many an hour with these rag-a-muffins and we had a few photoshoots. 

some in the studio and some outside.

i found new fantastic friends in my ward,

and wowed them with my amazing acrobatics. 

i also spent a lot of time with my 'freshmen' friends.

then there was book club, at least a few. (we aren't so good at the whole once a month thing...)

and photography parties and more than a few classes.

then there was spur the moment jet blue deals that landed three sisters in new york together. 

and more expensive flights that landed two sisters in new zealand for thanksgiving.

 and of course the year ends with a christmas morning photo op on the stairs...

oh, and i met my first llama AND i managed to wear makeup everyday for a year. 

okay, almost everyday.

the end

this town is backwardz

this is what you get if you google provo culture. amazing. priceless.

Today one of my professors mentioned how when he was in school he had a professor that would give every student a platinum print as a wedding present (best wedding present ever). At the end of the class my professor asked for a print since he was not married and didn't think that it was fair that he should be left out of the amazing platinum print gifting.

This brings me to one of my biggest complaints about Provo and its backwards views.

Here, if you are married, you are instantly more responsible/mature/knowledgeable/likable/deserving/and anything else you can name.

But here is the hard truth: a vast majority of the married people i know are not smarter than me and are, quite frankly, not bright enough to be married and bringing children into this world. (there is a reason why the BYU stereotype for marriage exist, it is true that a lot of people get married young and aren't ready for it, their brains haven't matured enough...)

this 19 yr old mormon couple was featured on MTV's Engaged and Underaged. their episode...wow...

This makes me sound bitter about marriage, but i am not. One day i am sure i will fall in love and get all giddy and plan every aspect of my life down to how many children mister right and i are going to have to the color of the chargers at our reception. (that is me trying to sound classy, yes, i know what a charger is...)  

Everyone knows that i have a few issues with BYU, namely BYU Housing and that the honor code takes away honor from people. The thing with the honor code is that once you are married a lot of it doesn't apply any more. You no longer have to live in the crappy mandated BYU Housing, you don't have a curfew, you can have (are encouraged) to have the opposite sex in your apartment (okay so i don't want babies now so that rule is good), but most importantly (and frustrating) people in administration treat married students more like equals.

Somehow my social status has suffered, not due to anything i have done, but due to the fact that others have leaped (blindly in cases) into matrimony and i, have not.

this dress is AMAZING and mine will be slightly like it.

Last time i checked i was decently independent and adult. I have been basically finically independent since i was 16. I am putting myself through college. I co-own a successful business. I know how to cook and am pretty good at it. I am good at balancing my finances and really good at shopping. I know how to change a tire. I know those random cleaning and laundry tricks.

Why is it then, that i am treated like i am slightly less of a person than my 18 year old married counterpart?!

oh and also speaking of marriage, but not provo in general, why is it that you aren't supposed to need anything until you get married and then you get to put it on your registry? Do people not learn how to cook until they get married? Do you not need dishes or towels or furniture when you are single? For the record, i need/needed all of these/those things. As long as my future husband is small enough to fit in a full size bed i don't need a thing-other than a tandem-when i get hitched.