Wednesday, April 30, 2008

tagged!

So, I was tagged by Amylee. Here it is.....

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:30 AM--I had an appointment at 8:30 AM

2. What do you usually have for breakfast? a bowl of cereal when i get to the office

3. What is your favorite CD of the moment? my latest mix cd or janet jackson's decade

4. What kind of car do you drive? Mitsubishi Galant--her name is Tinkerbell

5. Favorite sandwich? My mom's tuna fish sandwich on wheat bread with cheetos

6. Favorite item of clothing? I'd have to say flip flops and hoodies. But I do love to wear high-heels

7. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? it's hard to pick one but I think New Zealand would probably be at the top of the list. Austria & Switzerland is a close second

8. What color is your bathroom? hot pink and yellow

9. Where would you retire? probably a quiet beach town

10. Most memorable birthday? my 28th. It was a big group date--there were 10 of us--we ate dinner at the Snake Creek Grill in Heber and then stayed at a fun lodge in Park City and had buckwheat pancakes the next morning

11. Favorite sport to watch? football, no question. especially the Cougars :)

12. Are you a morning person or a night person? I'm definitely not a morning person but I generally go to bed before 11 so I don't know if that qualifies me as a night person

13. What is your shoe size? 6

14.Pets? I am an aunt to a 3 year old weimeraner, Harris.


15. What did you want to be when you were little? I don't think I thought about it a lot but I often would "play" secretary, waitress or set up a little nail salon on the piano bench. you know, dream big.

16. What are you today? i'm an executive assistant. i support three partners at a private equity fund

17. What is your favorite candy? I grew up addicted to sweetarts but then they changed their flavors and I don't love them as much. Lately it's been starburst or watermelon jolly ranchers.

18. What is your favorite flower? toss up between gerb daisies and tulips

19. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? May21-26. Belize, baby!

20. What are you listening to right now? the hum of the office

21. What is the last thing you ate? a jamba juice. orange-a-peel no banana

22. Do you wish on stars? Star light star bright...

23. What faith are you? Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

24. Who is the last person you spoke with on the phone? Ashley Mangus

25. Hair color? multicolor

26. Name of your favorite school teacher? Mr. Evans--freshman algebra teacher.

27. Chocolate or vanilla? chocolate

28. When was the last time you cried? It's been a while. I actually got a little teary watching Brooke get kicked off Idol last night. Poor girl fell apart.

29. What is under your bed? Big tupperwares of old books and stuff from college. also my old bed set.

30. What did you do last night? I went to a friend's house to get acquainted with her house/dogs. I'm going to be housesitting next week for her. I also had a softball game.

31. Favorite smell? something baking

32. What are you afraid of? Going crazy and buying cats and stretch pants. I also don't care much for clowns.

33. How many towns have you lived in? 3: Hewitt, TX and Provo, UT and Salt Lake City, UT. I also lived in the Dominican Republic for 4 months.

34. Do you make friends easily? I think so. I'm a fairly easy-going person

Okay, I TAG Mangsy, Jenny, Heather and Leah!


Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Big Apple-NYC day 3 & 4


So day 3 and 4 in NYC were a whirldwind of activity. We hit Times Square in the morning and picked up a few souvenirs. We needed to get to the meeting place for our Brooklyn tour and were on our way but quickly distracted by a delicious-smelling bakery. We didn't really have the time but couldn't resist picking up some brownies, cookies, and a piece of cake. It was from ROXYs--a great bakery famous for their cheesecake. We were the last to arrive to the bus stop for our "Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour" but it was okay. Tony, our guide, was waiting for us with his black hoodie and raybans. When I said oh--thanks for waiting for us, all he could say was "fughetaboudit". I knew we were in for a treat. My sister Em had seen a highlight on the Today show featuring a Brooklynite doing a tour around the city with an emphasis on pizza. Marilyn just loves pizza so we decided to surprise her with this tour. We jumped on a brand new charter bus that was great. It just so happened that the last row had 5 seats across the back which was perfect for us. Tony took us all around Brooklyn telling these great stories and showing movie clips highlighting Brooklyn. We also stopped at two of the greatest pizza places--one with the Neapolitan style thin crust: Grimaldi's under the Brooklyn Bridge. Everyone must know about the joint because there was a line 25 deep before the doors even opened. And one with the Sicilian style deep crust: L&B Spumoni Gardens. Tony grew up eating at both places and they were delicious. We saw the fancy houses in Brooklyn as well as Coney Island, the very first Nathan's hot dog stand, the site where the Battle of Brooklyn started (the start of the American Revolution) as well as fun stories about the real mobs and history of Brooklyn--it was fascinating. Our guide Tony was born and bred in the heart of Brooklyn and his brothers are Vinnie & Joey. "You can't make this stuff up" he joked. Anyway, I couldn't reccommend this tour more. Excluding my sisters, I was the only one uner the age of 60 but it was still a great time. We made our way home to relax a little and get ready for dinner. We jumped in a cab and headed off to the District for dinner. Everything was so good. It was one of the places where everything is served on a giant plate with your food right in the middle and some sort of colored smear on the side for effect. We were even served a little appetizer, compliments of the chef. I had no idea what it was but I ate it up and it was good. We then walked over to the theater for Little Mermaid. It was a very fun show. I personally prefer shows like Wicked and Les Mis that have AMAZING music but I still enjoyed it. The effects/costumes were very cool. All the underwater characters were on heelies (the kids shoes with wheels in the heels) to give the effect of swimming. I thought that was so clever. Before the show started, we were in line in the bathroom when a cute little girl with big curls and a poofy dress was walking out-she went up to the bathroom attendant and said "Excuse me, but I think I am going to love this show". It was really cute. Anyway, we jumped in a cab to get home and Amy and I got an extreme case of the giggles. It's best not to look forward in an NYC cab. It's an all out race to the next red light and all safety precautions and traffic warnings are, as Amy says, "merely suggestions". I will say, though, that I've never been in or seen an accident yet with the cabbies. Again, the night doorman failed to recognize us. Hello, we're the 5 white girls with purses strapped across our chests--we all travel together--we've got a prego and a grey-hair and we all look alike and we've had verbal exchanges with you the last two nights. You'd think he'd remember us. Anyway, we polished off Mom's birthday cake on the roof and took in some more of the amazing city skyline views at night. The next morning we woke up, put Mom in a cab back to the airport and the rest of us headed off to Central Park. After a few mishaps with the subway (apparently there is a difference between local vs. express--we ended up in Harlem) we made it to Central Park. We wandered for a while and then made our way to the Time Warner Center at Columbus Cirlce. we ate lunch and shopped a little and then put Amy in a cab. She was the second to leave. Em, Les and I wandered down 5th avenue seeing all the fancy stores and I picked up a hat from a street vendor. And then we had our final little adventure. We jumped in a cab to head all the way downtown to the Magnolia Bakery. This was my third time to NYC and this bakery has been on the list since trip #1 and I finally made it! Their cupcakes get rave reviews and just had to try them. I almost bought their t-shirt that says "Cupcakes make people happy". I couldn't agree more. We raced back to the apartment to get Emily's bag and put her in cab to her bus stop. Les and I had about an hour to relax and then it was our turn to head to the airport. I remember about 4 minutes of the entire cab ride--I was out like a light. The flight was okay save the obnoxious mom and daughter directly in front of us. She was loud, annoying, never stopped talking, her gameboy made obnoxious noises and she continuously sprayed this strong-smelling detangler in her hair the entire flight. Hello, a little courtesy please. But, this couldn't ruin the amazing trip we had together in New York. It was quick but we packed in a lot and we won't soon forget our time together. Happy Birthday Mom-we love you. To see all my pics go here and click slideshow.

































Monday, April 28, 2008

Start Spreadin the News! (NYC day 1 and 2)

NYC was awesome. We had such a great time. My three sisters (Emily, Amy, Lesley) and I took our mom (Marilyn) to NYC for her 60th birthday this past weekend. Mom and Amy had never been so it was so much fun to take them around the city. On the flight out, Les and I were actually on the Susan G Komen Delta plane so it was pink and that was kind of cool. We met Mom and Amy at the airport and then took a car service to the apartment. It was fun to come down the elevator and see a man in a suit holding a square card with my name on it :) It was close to midnight so the drive was really quick and we got to our building in no time. The door man was a total goofball and almost wouldn't let us up. We had two top floor corner apts of a new building in midtown on the west side (52nd street and 10th ave) and they were perfect--so nice. Our view was spectacular (this pic was taken from our window-the Empire State Building is in the middle) A good portion of two of the walls were floor to ceiling windows. Thanks to Emily (she got there before the rest of us did), the fridges were stocked with plenty of diet coke and diet dr. pepper for the weekend as well as breakfast stuff. It wouldn't be a Johnson girls adventure without diet beverages! We said our good nights and settled into our new digs. We got up Friday morning and jumped on the subway to go downtown. We took the Staten Island Ferry back and forth to see the Statue of Liberty. We then wandered around the financial district: saw the famous bull statue, the Federal Building (where Washington was sworn is as President), the NY stock exchange, and of course Wall Street. From an overhead walking bridge, we saw the large hole at Ground Zero left by the two towers and the rebuilding going on there. We grabbed lunch and then headed toward midtown to see Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock (similar to going to the top of the Empire State Building) We headed home to take a break and broke out Mom's birthday cake (hand-delivered from the Granite Bakery in Salt Lake City. They thought I was crazy to take a cake on a plane) We then walked down the street to Vice Versa for dinner (which was fantastic) and walked just one more short block to the theater to see Wicked. This is my third time seeing Wicked and I just can't get enough. It is such a great show. Amazing music, great storyline, clever and funny. I'm sure I'll go again when it's here in SLC next year. We walked home and the doorman looked at us like he'd never seen us. After another exchange, he finally let us up. We took in the amazing view for a few minutes and called it a night. All in all it was a great first day in the city. I'm not in many of the pics I took. When I get pics from other cameras, I'll post more. To see all my pics go here



Monday, April 21, 2008

let me take you on an escapade

St. George 2008! What a glorious weekend. I'm surprised I even got in the car to come back yesterday. We had a great time. There were six of us: me, Jocelyn, Kim, Christy, Ann & Ashley. We stayed at Jocelyn's parent's beautiful vacation home. It was so big that we each had our own bedroom and I lucked out with my own bathroom. The drive down went by pretty quick. We listened to great music and talked about whatever. We made some friends at the Chevron/Dairy Queen in Scipio and had a little text war with them after we left. We totally won. We also created a fail-proof deer detecting system should we encounter one on the drive. Kim was the spotter and would yell "deer", Jocelyn determined its size and based on her asessment I would advise Christy whether to swerve or to hit. Our practice drills went well :) We were pool bums all day on Friday and then we watched a movie and then went for a run/walk. We grabbed dinner at the Pizza Factory that night--the best part was listening to this awful date in the booth behind us. Christy labeled him a "guido": slicked back hair--tight white t-shirt with the wife-beater showing through, very muscle-ly and just a total tool: talking about his ex-girlfriends and ex-fiancees and blah blah blah. Had it gone on any longer, we would have had to rescue the poor girl and tell him to go home. Anyway--We went to the pool again on Saturday and then got the whim to go down to Las Vegas. Before we left we had a little photo shoot for about 20 minutes--we went a little crazy. We strolled into town around 9 and got a reservation at a fun restaurant called FIX at the Bellagio. We walked around town and got gelato, saw a little bit of a watershow, got a little crazy at Sephora and just had a great time people watching. I loved the under-dressed, over-exposed table of Cougars next to us. they were definitely on the prowl. We all passed out on the the drive home--Joc and Christy were superstars for staying awake. We had a lovely brunch Sunday morning and just relaxed the rest of the day. Anyway--it was a perfect weekend. There were more one-liners and side-splitting moments to count. We laughed the whole time. We even joked that we would all just move in and put ourselves on Jocelyn's parents' payroll. Kim was going to be the pool girl/lifeguard. Jocelyn was in charge of landscaping. I was the handygirl/fix-it girl. Ashley would be the cook. Ann would clean and Christy would do laundry. It was a perfect plan. But alas, reality set in and we had to come home. The drive was long but well worth going down there. We're already planning a return visit. Thanks ladies for a rockstar weekend. I had a blast and the city of St. George is still reeling from what hit them this weekend :)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

swing batter batter

So softball season kicked off last night...in the snow. What the? it is the middle of April. Monday was one of the prettiest days we've seen all year--almost 80 degrees. The next two days it's freezing and snowing. Come on already--we've had enough. Anyway, we have a good team--we're called 3rd Base--and last year we played in the "just for fun" league. Apparently we were pretty good and were forced to be bumped up in the competitive league. A couple of us girls were walking toward the field when we noticed the kids we would be playing. Excuse me for this but literally our first thought was, oh s**t. Can you really call these people women? As you look across the outfield it really is difficult to distinguish gender. I especially liked the one gal with chew in her bottom lip. Anyway, we were able to hang for the most part but eventually lost 13-7. I think a lot of it was first game jitters and we haven't played since October and we've got some new people so it's a new team and last night was the first time we played together. .. yadda yadda...Hopefully we'll find our groove and be the 3rd Base that I know we can be.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

This was a bad idea

what's up cyberworld? there's nothing new or notable in the life of nancy but I guess that really doesn't ever stop me from blogging. It seemed like last week I had something to do every single night of the week except Friday. It's funny how it seems that I am the most popular girl Monday-Thursday but once the weekend rolls around, I can hear crickets chirping. Anyway, Saturday was nice--I started out with a pedicure and then met Les and Matt and Em for lunch at the Rio and then headed up to see Grandpa in Evanston. Em flew in town for the weekend to come visit him. He's still on the road to recovery but definitely doing better than the last two times I've been up there. He's in a nursing/rehab facility and hopefully if he continues to improve can go home soon. Honestly, I think being home would be the best medicine. He was in somewhat good spirits and joking a little. When Lesley pointed out her pregnant stomach, all he could say was "Well it's your own fault!" This is exactly why we love Grandpa J. I saw Miss Pettigrew with the girls that evening and then met them again the next morning for a nice crepe breakfast before the morning session of conference. I met up with the fam again and we visited Uncle Steve in the hospital. I tell you the Johnson boys are all falling apart! We spend the rest of the day being a little bit lazy. It was really nice. This week is pretty quiet at the office. All my guys are out until Friday so I've been able to get a lot done and no one notices if I'm gone for two hours at lunch :) Idol is on tonight which makes me happy and i'm definitely looking forward to the return of NBC shows on Thursday--new episodes of 30 Rock and The Office--hello. I ended up taking third to last in the office pool for the NCAA finals. I was holding on to last place for a while but was fine to give up the title. That last second 3-pointer from Chalmers was pretty impressive. Go Jayhawks! One last little tidbit: Em decided she wanted to go down to Provo last night for dinner at Brick Oven--a family favorite for 20+ years. So we do the 30 minute drive in the snow to get there and find one million families waiting in the lobby. Apparently, Monday is free root beer night and the number of cheap families in Utah County is not in short supply. The ratio of kids to adults was easily 3:1. When our name was called--Emily, party of two, we were immediately taken to the coveted "date booth" in the middle of the restaurant. It's a U-shaped booth made from silver sparkly vinyl. awesome. We heard the special brick oven birthday song no less than 5 times and the line to see the balloon animal guy was ten deep. The night was not complete without the infamous Johnson line of "This was a bad idea"

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

it's only tuesday

well it's been a couple weeks since I last posted and unfortunately, there is not a lot to report. Here are the highlights:

1. dog-watched Harris while Les and Matt were out in Michigan (Matt's dad is the president at Western Michigan University and there was a big to-do for him)
2. ate pancakes for Easter dinner
3. had a spontaneous hair appointment (got bored at work & decided to go get my hair done)
4. watched the Bachelor with some girlfriends
5. went to the Jazz game with the office (we rented out a suite)
6. went to a cabin and four wheeling with a group of friends last weekend
7. started my hip-hop dance class with melinda and jen
8. got a little swiss army knife directly from switzerland (thanks jenny & holly)