You know who's awesome?

Grandpa, that's who.

This man taught me how to drive.

And to love vienna sausages.

And I cannot count how many times

he's picked me up from college,

driven me to and from the aiport,

and helped me move in.

He's the best.

Grateful

For beaches and brilliant birthdays.

[and for El Salvador]

For the promise of temples.

And for temple promises.

For roommate photo shoots.

For roommates.

For friends who are smart and awesome.

For my childhood.

For never having to go through 7th grade again.

For 7th grade friends you still visit.

For the children of those grown-up friends from 7th grade.

For college friends coming home from their missions.

[isn't it awesome that this is the only picture in high definition?]

For new sisters.

For little brothers.

For grown-up puppies.

For new friends.

For children.

For traveling to new places and meeting inspiring people.

For the eventual Spring.

For my parents.

For Japanese food.

[Mostly for my Uncle Brad and Cousin Yuri who make me Japanese food]

For morose self-portraits.

It's a good life.

back in america

I've just about finished up Honduras, save for the head-achingly long paper I need to write by Wednesday about La Sucia and other variations of Honduran myth-tale. Honduras deserves a heart-warming experience summary and goodbye, but I'm tired and I need to write that paper so all I'll say is Honduras was/is great and I miss it a lot and I wouldn't trade my time there for time in any other part of the world. But also, I love America and am always most pleased to return to my patria.

The last few weeks have been filled with glorious days of basking in Utah (and for brief bits in Wyoming) with my glorious extended family. Having missed my elder brother's wedding, I at least got to attend his open house in which I labored diligently to hang lights and arrange flowers, and got to see my brother and new sis in all their radiant wedded-clothes glory. Also, I am kind of love in with my new sister-in-law. She's the best.

My padre and other brother were back in D.C. Oh well.

Then there was the Utah Shakespeare Festival in all its 50th anniversary glory where we saw the Glass Menagerie which I loved and Romeo & Juliet where all the men actors wore tights (distracting), and Midsummer's Night Dream which was magical except for the cheesy blinky toys the fairies used at the end.

And then off we went to Flaming Gorge which has been our family's real tradition since the beginning of time where we all camp and raft and hike and swim and I learn to cook bacon and when all the cousins hang out and it's just marvelous.

My buff little bro & the lake.

Just married and eating ice cream. So cute.

With the cousins.

The Green River.

Makin bacon.

The dam. The hike. The life.

It's a good summer.

Honduras: Win

We arrived in Tegucigalpa at 4pm yesterday, huzzah!

The flights were short, the layovers long. We got to LAX at 11:00p Friday night with our next flight scheduled to leave for San Salvador at 1:40a. This turned out to be a very good thing because apparently all of the TACA computer/automatic systems were out (mysteriously only TACA was affected by this electronic black-out because all of the other airlines were fine) so we had to stand in this forever-long line that stretched outside the airport to receive hand-written boarding passes. Goodness. Not surprisingly our flight was delayed so we missed our connecting flight from San Salvador to Tegucigalpa so we spent all day yesterday in the San Salvador airport which was mostly boring except for the 45 minutes we spent eating pupusas for lunch. Eating pupusas in El Salvador: Win. Totally crossing that off my bucket list.

Whilst in the San Salvador airport we also encountered this sign which I thought hilarious. I'm all for painting the world with happiness and hope, but the accompanying image of the world being doused with red dripping paint unfortunately brought more morbid images to mind. Bummer.

The flight to Tegucigalpa was only 4o minutes in a tiny propeller plane. The Tegucigalpa airport is smack dab in the middle of the city and has a tiny tiny runway. I think we circled above it about 3 or 4 times before we finally were close enough to land without dying or crashing into any houses which must have been literally meters from the actual airport. Win. Our manger Hmno. V picked us up and took us to our sweeeeet apartment which I love. I think I am dispuesta to fall in love easily, but seriously our apartment is awesome. He and Hmna. V took us grocery shopping (19 lempiras to a dollar btw) and out to eat at a traditional Honduran restaurant. At this point J and I were both exhausted and in my efforts to come across as an excited and positive intern (which I am of course) I may have instead come across as an over-excited preschooler as I excitedly (and over-loudly) kept repeating the names of all the food we were ordering none of which I currently remember. Kelsey: Lose. Regardless, I ate some pretty fine platanos and drank probably the best lemonade known to mankind.

Today we've recuperated somewhat by attending church--which is gloriously within walking distance--and napping. The ward is friendly the only down-side being it's occupied by two sets of elders and no sisters. So no splits for us. Sadness. We (unsuccessfully) explained to the ward that we, in fact, were not sister missionaries, but interns and were met with blank stare after blank stare. Oh well.

All in all, good game Honduras.

As a side, but nonetheless important note, my friend Seth, upon hearing that my journey to Honduras will last approx. 90 days was inspired to take on an equally epic 90-day challenge, namely that of P90X. He's volunteered and promised to send me pictures/updates of his progress, so blog reader(s) look forward to that. In an attempt to match Seth's physical prowess I will undertake an additional 90-day challenge of morning yoga w/Rodney Yee. So yeah, lots to look forward to for everyone.

Score: Kelsey: Honduras + Yoga. Seth: Kentucky + P90X. Kelsey: Win.

Finally, Feliz de las Madres! I can only hope that your madres are as awesome as mine, which they are not. Kelsey: Win.

A Happy Father's Day, I wish to you.

One of the (many) happy things about this summer is that I get to commute with my Father. My Father, a bona fide Commuter Warrior, is an impressive sight to behold. He is fearless; squeezing through metro doors with milliseconds to spare. Undaunted by the hostile Other, he weaves his way through crowds, up escalators, across streets, all with relentless and visible Purpose. Sometimes (to, and probably for, my great delight) he accomplishes all of this whilst using Jedi-like hand signals and Yoda-esque syntax.

Thank you Father. Your Infinite Wisdom and Patience continues to correct my somewhat lackadaisical commute.

We don't talk about being buff all the time, just most of the time.

Today my brother Connor told me his female gym teacher had biceps as big as his head. Connor's head is very big.

After Connor said this I immediately remembered an odd, and very buff, acquaintance of mine. [Note: This acquaintance's buffness is incidental to her oddness. I have nothing against people, of either gender, who are buff. Kumbaya.]

Anyhow, this acquaintance once said (among many other things) that she would only date men she couldn't bench press.

Simultaneously I remembered this acquaintance and was struck with a strong desire to be both witty and humorous. Consequently, I told Connor: "I only date men I can bench press," when I really meant to say, "I only date men I can't bench press" and thus allude to our shared buff acquaintance.

Connor laughed heartily. Not because he remembered our shared acquaintance, but because I can't bench press anything, much less a man.

Moral: I guarantee my biceps are smaller than your head.

Some much needed perspective.

My brother Anson is a pretty solid guy. I ask him important questions and get rad answers in return.

Today I asked Anson: "What do you want from life?"

Anson: "To get the girl, get a cool job, go on a mission, be buff, and then receive all the good things that come from being buff."

Unequivocally, Anson has his giant buff thumb on the pulse of life.

Lions don't eat vegetables....

I am conflicted.

So I am STILL illustrating "Marco and Scarlett's Vegetable Venture" for the Womens' Health Clinic. I feel like it will do good things. As a vegetarian, I'm down with promoting vegetables (even carrots and especially spinach). And if I end up impressing upon young minds that lions wear pants and eat leafy greens, what of it?

Dilemma 1: So Grace's four-year-old nephew comes by while I'm working on my illustrations and immediately looks at my pictures and comments: "Lions don't eat vegetables." Yeah, well.

Dilemma 2: I was also having a conversation with my mother about the relationship between the quality of illustrations vs. child-friendliness. Conclusion: The fact that I am drawing poor quality illustrations of lions in sun-dresses may actually be extremely appealing to young children, despite the absence of aesthetic stimulation.

Dilemma 3: When I worked for Discovery Creek last summer the most-requested book was "The Big Golden Book of Cavemen." This book was chalk full of graphic depictions of hairy Neanderthals slaughtering and eating zebras and mammoths.

Conclusion:

Children want this:

Not this:

Look, whatever happens, Neanderthals and aesthetic implications aside, eat your vegetables!

My Dad sends me the best emails.

Dad: I came across below in Wiki. It made me laugh out loud.

"Brandon Flowers receives Home Teachers on a monthly basis, and regularly proves the winner of his ward's Variety Show.

Of course.

These is my boots. They have personality.

Motley Collection: A pair of glasses, brother, bottomless plant.