Sweet 16 for my sassy sister!

Hmmmmmm....what to say about Rylee Bean?  More like what is there not to say about this girl?  She is quite possibly one of the most hilarious people on the face of the planet earth.  I love how every time she calls me her sentences start out with "OH MY GOSH, GUESS WHAT?"  I know I'm always in for a dramatic tale that will no doubt have my cracking up by the end.

We are different in pretty much every way possible.  She can find things to talk about with complete strangers while I tend to be more shy.  She is always dressed cute and all done up when I would much rather put on some basketball shorts and a t-shirt.  She knows everything about everyone when I am completely oblivious to everything going on around me.  She can sit and watch Project Runway and Say Yes to the Dress when I would rather stick forks into my eye sockets, but these differences are what make our relationship so magical.

It wasn't always that way though.  When we were little Rylee would follow me around everywhere I went.  She always wanted to be right there with me and my friends, listening to all our conversations and playing games with us.  It drove me insane.  I would complain about it to my mom almost every single day.  Finally mom was tired of hearing me whine about it and told me that "one day you will be grateful to have a sister that wants to be my friend."  That day came a long time ago.  She became the person I could talk to about everything, my personal hair stylist for all the high school dances, and was one of my biggest fans.  I only wish that instead of complaining all those years about having her follow me around that I would have enjoyed the time we had because I would kill to have her by my side constantly now.

Love ya kiddo.  Have fun on your first date tomorrow and tell Trent that if he pulls any funny business I will have to hurt him :)

Car

Anticipate the pass!

I have decided that blogging and college don’t really mix, especially when your major consists of writing all the time.  So basically the last thing I want to do when I finish up the day is write a blog post.   However, today is special.  We are celebrating yet another birthday at the McKeon house and since I’m in a completely different state, I am sending my partying love via the web.

I won’t tell you exactly how old my dad is…but he is one year older than the Super Bowl if you want to figure it out.  I have had the grand privilege of being his daughter for the past two decades (which have been the best decades of his life I’m sure).

I was thinking of what I could write about when I started to reminisce about some of the best conversations me and my sibs have had with my dad.  I can still here him yell from the stands to anticipate the pass while playing defense, but here are other convo's I have yet to forget:

Convo #1: This stretches back to when we lived in AZ.  My dad firmly believes that a family that works together, stays together.  Even when it is 157 degrees outside.

Me: “Dad, how come we are the only kids in the whole neighborhood who do chores?”

Dad: “Why would I pay someone to mow the lawn, clean the pool, weed the yard, or do the trimming when I have 4 José’s who live under my roof?”

Me: “Well how come we are the only people who mop our garage?”

Dad: “Because it looks nice.”

Queue our neighbor, Bernie Zepper.

Bernie: “Hey Howard, I’m going to call that child services on you for working these kids like that.”

Dad: “How can I not work them like this when they do such a good job?”

Bernie: “Good point.  Send them over to my house when you are done.”
Thanks, Dad, thanks.

Convo #2: This little gem took place after Rylee discovered my Dad was rockin’ the cul-de-sac.

Rylee: “Dad why don’t you just grow out your bangs to cover up your bald spot?” 

Dad: “Good idea, Ry.  I will try that.”

Convo #3: Derek and I enjoyed torturing Rylee when she was little because she only weighed like 38 pounds until she was 12.

Derek: “Hey Car, lets tie Rylee up with a jump rope and put her down the laundry chute.”

Me: “Yeah, ok.  Good idea.”

We proceed to capture our prey, tie the rope around her body and begin to lower her down the laundry chute just as Dad came walking down the hall.

Dad: “Hey what are you doing?”

Me: “Ummmm, playing with Rylee.”

Dad: “Where is she?”

Derek: “We are trying to lower her all the way down the laundry chute.

Dad looks at us for a second.  We start to get nervous because we are for sure getting in trouble for this one.

Dad: “Well pull her up, you are doing it wrong.  Let me show you how to do it.”

Dad then proceeds to help us get Rylee stuck in the chute.  Good times, good times.

Convo #4: Following a basketball tournament, my dad let me drive his precious Acura home.  I didn’t have my license yet, so I was still learning how to drive before taking the driving test.

Me (referring to basketball): “I’m not very good at driving down the middle of the lane.”

Dad (referring to who knows what): “I think you are doing just fine.”

Me: “I missed like three.”

Dad: “On your test?”

Me (getting irritated): “No, I missed three different times when I was trying to drive down the middle of the lane.”

Dad (very confused): “How did you miss three?  Did you go over the line?  Like three points on the test?”

Me (mad because he is NOT listening to a word I am saying): “What test? What are you even talking about?”

Dad: “Well what are you talking about?”

Me: “My basketball game!”

Dad: “Ohhhh, sorry I thought you were talking about driving….cars.”

Only you understand the magic of this one, Dad.

                As demonstrated above, the man is way cool.  He always wanted the best for us, worked hard to provide for our family, and made us laugh along the way.  Whether you know him as Coach, Boss, Uncle HoWEIRD, Hitler with a Heart, or ‘The Blanket,’ he has always been one thing to me—my Dad.  My life is going to forever change here in a couple of months and I don't know everything the future has in store, but I do one thing.  I will have my dad on my side, preparing me along the way, and helping me "anticipate the pass."  Love you, Pop.  Happy Birthday and go Cougs! 

I got it from my MOMMA

Since all I do these days is write and write and write, I have been horrible at keeping up my blog.  But this week something super special is happening.  On December 2nd, the most monumental event in world history took place....my Momma was born!  I know everyone thinks their mom is the greatest so I'm not going to post a whole thing on why she is the best mom in the world, but she is the greatest mom in the world for me and my sibs and this is why:

1. She always let us be ourselves.  Most little girls like to dress up and play barbies, but she let me rock ridiculous outfits and play with my Buzz Lightyear action figure instead.

 

2. She supported us in whatever we wanted to do. From soccer to basketball to football to piano to water polo to male stripping, she was there for us through it all.

3. She always made the holidays fun. She literally decorated our house for every single holiday and did it while wearing hip 90's workout attire.

4. She has a great taste in pajamas.

5. She held our hands when we were nervous for the first day of school.

6. She always took us to do fun things.

 7. She makes us laugh.

8. She is a dang good cook.  I can't even really remember having a calm and quiet evening dinner because we always had friends stopping by to eat her food.

9. She lets us tease her about being a granola/utard

10. She was always a mom first, but I can call her a best friend too.

And there are so many other things that make our mom awesome.  As I have gotten older (yes, I'm no longer a teen so I can call myself old) I have noticed all the things I have picked up from her because I look up to her so much.

I now:

- refrigerate my batteries

- cook with the dish towel on my shoulder

- drive like I'm competing in a NASCAR race. Always.

- speed walk everywhere even if I'm not in a hurry

- stiff arm the person in the passenger seat when I slam on the breaks

- find running enjoyable

- hate the word 'surreal'

- love Bon Jovi

- refuse to get in water below 80 degrees

- like watching HGTV

- will not drink out of a restaurant cup without a straw

- and so much more.

Basically, mom is the greatest.  She is soooo beyond patient and I love her so much.  Happy 28th birthday Mom!

I'd timp that...

Yeah that's right, we hiked Mt. Timpanogos...again.  It was a pretty epic day, not gonna lie.  First this little missy opened her mission call...

...she is off to Brazil.  I'm going to "hecka" miss her, but she is going to be the best Sister missionary ever.  Anyways, we packed up our bags and headed up to the mountain.  The weather was PERFECT, but we started at 3 in the afternoon so we knew we would be hiking in the dark.

This was our little group at the start of the trail.  Literally five steps into it we made a wrong turn and unfortunately it would not be our last.  Our first stop was at this beautiful waterfall...

We hiked around it for a little while because it is probably the coolest things (besides the peak) on the whole hike.

You get to pass the falls twice on the way up, so here we are standing at the top of the falls...

We did work after this stop.  We knew we had a loooong way to go so we didn't stop much for pictures after this point.  We made it up to the lake when it started to cool off and the sun started to set.  We lost half the group to fatigue, but Porter, Mel, R-beck, and I kept going.

We had to straight up walk across a glacier to get to the trail to take us to the peak.  It was nuts.  First R-beck would slip, then Mel would pretty much fall clear off of the mountain, and then I would get my leg stuck in rocks.  That part was all kinda miserable and you had to go slower than a snail to get across it.  However, when we got over the saddle it made it all worth it.

You can tell it was getting pretty dark at this point, but I did not hike for 5 hours to not finish the last leg and make it to the top.  I thought it was only going to take 20 minutes or so from this point...it took an hour.  BUT...

WE MADE IT!!!!

It was a pretty solid accomplishment...you can tell by the look on R-beck's face just how amazing the whole experience was.  Well we made it 7 miles to get to the top and we had to turn around and hike the 7 miles back down.  That is when we got lost and injuries ensued, but we made it out alive.  Barely.  We got off the mountain at 1 a.m.  Yeah, do the math.  That is like a billion hours of hiking (or 10, but pretty much a billion). It was awesome and super pretty, but I think I'm done hiking it...until next fall.

As cool as Timp was, it is not the best thing that has happened this fall.  Football is.  I seriously love me some football.  Not like most BYU girls do though...you know the ones who just go to take pictures to put on FB so people think they are having legit college experiences.  I love the game...watching it, talking about it, predicting what's going to happen...all of it.  My inspiration is this guy....

He had me hooked when I was about that ^^^ age.  I sorta kinda used to brag in elementary school that my dad was this stud football player who knew EVERYTHING about the game.  We talk on the phone every Friday afternoon and predict the scores of all the big games and talk about what players we think will do well.  It is the best...you would think that the two of us combined knew more about the game than Bronco and Doman.  It's probably because we do.  If we were coaching the Cougs, we would have a 6-0 record instead of a 4-2 record.  We love us some BYU football and one of my favorite vacays was when we came to Provo as a whole family my senior in high school to watch BYU dominate.  It was good times...

Haha Rylee and Kirk were so presh.  The only thing I dislike about being in Provo during football season is that I am missing this kid's season.

He's a pretty big deal.  He scores touchdowns...a lot.  It is weird to think that my "baby brother" is an animal on the football field.  It was just yesterday he was our cute little grizzly.

 Now he is a little all-star...and all grown up.

Such a stud.  I love it.  And I love him.

He is prolly the cutest grizzly ever.  Here is K-dawg in action....

Gotta refuel.

Such a beast.  I wish I could watch him play.  I'm pretty sure next season I'm going to have to introduce Porter to GB football and take him out to one of the games.  They are the best.  Any GBHS alum will agree.

I'm also missing this one tear it up on the soccer field.  I guess she is doing this little cross country thing and the word on the street is she is alright.  She like runs super fast and stuff.  She's "totes" amazing.

Well that is what's going on with the McKeon's.  My mom comes up this weekend to help me find a wedding dress...that should be interesting considering I HATE shopping with a passion (unless it is for running shoes), but I love kickin' it with my momma so I'm pumped regardless of the circumstances.  I'm so thankful for her and all the work that she is doing for me...she is the best mom in the history of motherhood.  That is all for now.  Oh and remember to cheer on them Cougs and Niners!   --Car--

Grandpa Knows Best

Yes, another shout out to another important boy in my life.  This one is a little different though.  After we got engaged, I sorta kinda got bombarded with text messages and phone calls to congratulate me and hear “the story.”  I am really bad at ‘getting back’ to people so why not get it all out in a post.  I figured since Porter is turning 22 on Sunday, why not tell our little story in a blog update.

Porter first grabbed my attention was I was a junior in high school.  I read his article in the New Era (I admit, I only picked it up because I thought it was an SI).

 

I thought he had a really cool story, but it was just one of those things you read about and get a warm feeling inside.  Needless to say life went on.  When I was moving out to Provo, I stayed with grandparents for a few days before I could get into my new apartment.  I was watching Sports Center with my Grandpa Gale when he asked me if I had ever heard of the one-armed LDS baseball player.  He told me that he worked with the young man’s Aunt and that he was going to be attending BYU.  He then brought out the old 2008 New Era and told me to look him up at school.  I distinctly remember audibly laughing at the idea of running into this kid.  “Grandpa,” I said, “there are some 30,000 students at BYU.  I will NEVER find that guy.”  He simply smiled as if he knew something I didn’t, set the magazine down next to me, and went off to bed.  I re-read the magazine and once again left it at that.

 

Fast forward to the end of fall semester.  I was sitting in my apartment one night watching Sports Center (I swear I do other things besides watch ESPN) when someone knocked on the door.  My roommate got up and answered the door and then invited the visitor inside.  I don’t even think I looked up from the T.V. when he asked me if I had any fast offerings to donate.  “Nope,” I said, “I turned it in with my tithing.”  He then followed up with another question about my Tennessee basketball shorts.  A tad irritated that someone was interrupting my date with Sports Center, I looked over at him and I knew I had seen him somewhere before.  We tried to figure it out for a second and then I saw he was missing an arm.  “Were you the kid on the New Era?” I asked.  He shyly acknowledged that he was.  We then had an hour conversation about all of our favorite teams, players, etc.  It didn’t take long after that night for us to become friends.  We went to ball games together, shot around, and debated sports as often as we could.  We started to date and it got even better from there. ***Shout out to my roommate R-beck who was with us during every phase of our relationship and without her, probably would have never happened.***

I remember telling my family I was dating Porter and immediately the Facebook and YouTube stocking began.  Kirk thought how he played ball was legit, Rylee, of course, found every flaw she could, and Derek just seemed like he wanted me to be happy.  I started to go with Porter to his inspirational speaking engagements and so when he had to speak at his nephews baptism, I agreed to go to that too.  This meant I was meeting the fam.

Timeout: Porter has 6 kids in his family.  5 girls.  If you are bad at math that means Porter is the ONLY boy.

Game on: I was super nervous.  I had been told that dating an only boy was dangerous.  In fact, I had personally witnessed the demolishing of a girl who was dating a boy who had all sisters. His sisters tore her up.  On top of that, Porter had told me they were all super tough.  So yep, I was scared.

I met Monique first.  I remember going to her apartment in Vegas. Porter was teasing me a little bit and it was in my nature to fire back a witty comment.  I paused after I said it thinking, “oh crap, his sister is going to hate me,” only to have her start busting up and continue to give Porter a hard time.  She was legit and it only got easier from there.  All of his sisters were so beyond nice to me.  And to my astonishment, his parents were even more kind.  They welcomed me into their home as if I was on of their own.  They were one of the most amazing families I had ever met.  Falling in love with Porter was easy and falling in love with his family was even easier.

As things progressed, it came time for Porter to ask my dad for “permission.”  We took a trip out to GB for Derek’s graduation and after an extremely long interview, Porter got my dad’s blessing.  There were quite a few people who were nervous for Porter when they found out he was going to talk to my dad (including myself).  Why you ask?  Probably because I know my dad cares about me a whole heck of a lot and he can be a little bit intimidating.  I recall watching “Father of the Bride” with him on several occasions and every single time he cried in it, dreading the day his daughters would get married.  For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is most definitely a comedy and you are only supposed to cry from laughing super hard, not because it is sad.  I was relieved that Porter got his permission and it was comforting to know that all my dad cared about is that I was going to be cared for.  When we got back to Provo, I called to let my mom know we had arrived safely.  When I went to hang up she said to me, “you really couldn’t have picked a better young man.”  She was right.  Then again, she always is.

   

We went back out to Granite Bay after spring term and made our way down to San Francisco for a Giants game.  Rylee and her best friend Cierra tagged along.  Porter had been acting super weird for a couple of days, but I assumed he was just sad because I would be leaving for two months to go work out in D.C.  After the game we walked down this walkway in the stadium where the San Francisco Bay is on one side and the field is on the other (my two favorite things on both sides…the ocean and sports).  I turned to look out over the field and point something out to Porter and when I turned back around…boom, there he was down on one knee.  I said yes and on the two-hour drive home I don’t think I could have stopped smiling if I had tried and Rylee couldn’t stop talking about how she wanted a pretty bridesmaid dress.

That puts us back up to speed.  We are getting married April 28^th, which will be plenty of time to plan a killer wedding.  I probably have the best wedding planning crew ever.  I have Rylee, who faithfully watches ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ and has already created a “wedding to-do list.” I have my mom who does a great job planning EVERYTHING. Then there are my mom’s “bridge” friends who have already volunteered to help out. I am pretty confident in saying it will be one heck of a party.  I probably couldn’t be more excited to spend forever with my best friend.  I think as long as we don’t play one on one or ping-pong against each other too often, we will be one happy couple.  There has never been a person who has made me want to be better like Porter has.

Moral of the story?  Listen to your Grandpa’s words of wisdom because they pick out excellent husbands.  My Grandpa is one of the most incredible men I have ever met and I am so blessed to have him and my Grandma as examples in my life.  I remember telling my Grandma one day that when I grew up I wanted to marry someone just like grandpa.  She smiled and gently explained to me that Grandpa wasn’t “that way” when she married him.  As amazing as Porter is right now, I don’t doubt that he will continue to become an even more incredible person.

Happy birthday Port, love ya.

 We were grizzlies together....

 ...and now we are both GB Alum.

Always playin' in the dirt.

Yep, still in the dirt.