Big Squeeze & B.A.M.F

Who's lame now!?!?!!?

2008-06-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

Laura and Amy are amazing. So amazing, that last night, they decided to call their Oasis girls to see if they wanted to go for coffee. That right there is love. So they called, and what response do you think they got?

Becca: So you're hanging out by yourself right now. That's not cool.
Laura: No, I'm hanging out with Amy!
Becca: That's even Lamer!!!!!

Aiesha: I'm studying, what are you doing?
Laura: Me and Amy are bored and we want to go for coffee with you.
Aiesha: You guys are so lame.

So naturally, we decided to print off pictures of the Haunted House and leave them on their doorsteps. Who's lame now!?!? (That's right Aiesha, we thought so)

Love.

2008-05-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today we were at coffee night, a usual event for a Monday evening. Somehow the topic of spooning came up. I mentioned my dislike for human contact.
Laura enthusiastically responded with the phrase "I love Snuggle Buggles". It too was awesome.

a moment

2008-05-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

Today we were at coffee night, a usual event for a Monday evening. I wrote my signature on a piece of paper and gave it to Amy. You never know when those things will become worth something, especially since my boyfriend is a movie star and all.

I told her not to loose it. She ate it. It was awesome.

Everything is better in jello

2008-05-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

So there comes a time in every youth leader's life when we see our kids grow up and take responsibility. This year it happened so quick that dear Becca and Christi were sure that they were capable of being junior leaders and handling a cabin full of 11 year old girls at Transformers. Amy and I were delighted, moving out of our cabin meant war, and they had better watch out. The plans were made and the jello was purchased and the toothbrushes were stolen from our unsuspecting proteges. As Saturday afternoon came around we thought we were being sneaky to make jello in empty water bottles while everyone was in session.

Becca caught us red handed in the act. The questions began and all Amy could come up with was 'Gatorade' with a slight drinking motion. She took our supplies and stormed off with us following like a couple of kids who just got their favorite Barbie's confiscated. In the excitement she forgot to dump out one of the not yet set bottles of jello and left her toothbrush sitting where all could see. We grabbed in. Dropped it in and hid it until further notice.

As bedtime rolled around we plopped the solidified water bottle filled with jello and a toothbrush inside the door of her cabin with the feelings of a job well done. At least we got one of them. The following morning Becca jiggled her bottle of jello on her way to the bathroom and we were satisfied. It was not until during breakfast I noticed Becca had disappeared and go back to the cabin to find she froze my underpants. I had officially been Had.

Top 10 Things I Love about Amy Shier

2008-05-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

1. That God sent you to me.

2. Our really awesome blog (that surprisingly is read by more people than just Andrew Chong)

3. You are quite dependable

4. The fact that you are a HUGE gamer! Hahaha

5. How you think I am so funny

6. How we can pull super awesome, wicked ass pranks together!

7. When you repeat funny Craig quotes constantly

8. That you proof read my spelling

9. Our Halloween costumes

10. Trevor Chong

11. The answering machine messages that you leave me

12. That you can swim on dry land.

13. That we dress the same and try to be twins

14. The way you play dodgeball

15. The way you wrote our names on the side of the dart guns.

16. Nathan Scott

17. How you started the fire!

18. Blood

19. All the awesome art that you mailed me at work

20. The way we win (cheat) at everything

21. When you send me treats and whip cream

22. My Birthday card

23. I could go on forever...

LOVE LAURA!!!

To Amy on her Birthday!

2008-05-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Amy!

A poem...

On your birthday I wish you much pleasure and joy;
I hope all of your wishes come true.
May each hour and minute be filled with delight,
And your birthday be perfect for you!

the tasty, cheesy pita that started the fire...

2008-05-06T00:09:00.001-07:00

Joe McCarthy

Richard Nixon

Studebaker

Television

North Korea

South Korea

Marilyn Monroe

RYAN STARTED THE FIRE!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikNmGbS2EqQ

Top 10 Things I love about Laura Jean Smith!

2008-05-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

A coffee night to go down in the record books, Top 10 things that you love about the person to your left, Amy happened to get me and this is what she came up with.

1. She got an A- in Sociology (Katelynn Potter probably did not...)

2. She always acknowledges the great things others do

3. When we get Rico to Jump the Shark!

4. She goes above & Beyond for the people she loves

5. Her laugh

6. Her Rubik's cube time!

7. How great she looks rolling in money!

8. I LOVE the woman she's becoming as she grows in her faith

9. Her organizational skills (cause I got none!)

10. B.A.M.F

11. That our bedrooms are the same (all done before we met)

12. How modest she is (not...)

13. Trevor Chong

14. How she is really good at all sports

15. How she always helps out with the dishes at camp and pretends not to just so she will have to do it again.

16. How great she is at raking dirt.

17. How she looks soooo good in black stretchy pants, with a white t-shirt and a blue tank top.

18. That she's so great I can't stop!

Hillside likes to Party... Part Two

2008-05-05T23:16:00.001-07:00

Rush. An annual youth conference that brings youth groups from across the lower mainland for one weekend of fun every February. This year our girls carefully planned out themes for each meal including a fashionably late entrance with sick titties intro music (as Amy would say)

The morning lead off under the sea...

Next came superhereos from Scuba Steve to my personal favorite Superdog (like at the PNE)

The evening ended with a bunch of certified Gangstas. Ashley Short steeze, business cards and all...

We like to party alright, even if it is to Spider Pig and Backstreet Boys... what more do you need?

Happy Birthday Laura Jean Smith!

2008-05-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

Midnight Madness

2008-05-04T21:00:00.001-07:00

When Amy returned from Africa we had another sleepover. This one involved some crawling across the street, backstreet boys, an all you can eat buffet, and a prank phone call...

Here is an email that was sent a few short days after the call.

From: Amy Shier
Sent: Wed 3/5/2008 11:21 AM
To: Jesse Evans
Cc: Laura Smith
Subject: Jennifer Aniston

Ok, here's the story on Team Aniston.
So the day the mountain was open 24 hours, Laura & I were having a sleepover with our Youth group girls, and at 2am when they're all still WIRED, they decide they really want to prank call someone (we discovered back in September that I can make some pretty convincing prank calls). So who will we not disturb at 2am- the entire staff of Grouse Mountain. So we call Rentals, and I (pretending to be a Guest Services Rep.) tell Aiden that Jennifer Aniston and a male friend are heading up the mountain to ski, and need some equipment preset for them. So we BS some sizes, and Aiden doesn't REALLY believe us, mostly due to the fact that my New Zealand accent sounded waaaay more like something out of England…

Anyways, 10 minutes later, Laura seals the deal by calling and saying she'd just gotten off the tram, and Jennifer Aniston was on it, so Aiden freaks out, drops the phone and runs to do the presets. And somewhere in there Brendan (who was scanning passes in the upper terminal) was called and questioned about this, so Brendan calls Chris Fitch, who tells Jenny Bulmer, who may or may not have told the whole mountain.

The next day, Laura gets a call from Meghan Leeburn saying that Jenny & Chris spent the WHOLE night in the lower T waiting for Jennifer Aniston to get off a tram, later Sunday night, Chris told me that SOOOO many people had heard that rumour and thought it was true, and that he was with Erik Bowkett in the lower T, and that a conversation something like this took place:

Erik- "So I hear Jennifer Aniston's up the mountain."
Chris- "Yeah, I heard that too."
Erik- "She's hot. We should comp. her for EVERYTHING."
Basically Laura and Amy are awesome. Enough said.

and then came the orphans

2008-05-04T20:57:00.001-07:00

Amy went to Africa. To help the orphans. Whatever. We had a wicked sleepover without her.

Monday Night's Alright! (Alright, Alright!!!)

2008-05-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

There's this very lame part of the week I like to call 'Monday', when everyone's back at work or school and the world keeps trudging towards Friday. A day that can trick you on occasion, when work and school still have that fresh feel from two days off, and you're tricked into thinking it's all gravy (good). Lies of the mind I tell you- Monday is still Monday.
Monday is also the proud host of Girls Night Coffee (ok, if we're being literal, JJ Bean is the host...). A brilliant idea, brought to you by the world's foremost lover of the LoFo (London Fog baby)- Laura Smith, Girls Night Coffee has something for everyone. Everyone being ladies only. The funny (Hello, this is Jocelyn from the library...), the emo (top 10 things you like about Trevor Chong anybody?), and the action-packed (lap of the parking lot- GO!), it's all there on a Monday night.
In a shoebox so big it once may have contained Scary Spice's knee high platform leopard print somethings, there now sit envelopes large and small, green and off white, all filled with the deepest darkest secrets of a group of 15 year old girls. And Laura and Amy. The phrase "Top 10 ___" may have started out as a one time thing, but one list became four, which became more than four, which began to fill the aforementioned shoebox in their envelope shaped homes.
Top 10's became a staple of the week, ranging again, from the ridiculous (Top 10 Things you have in your bag RIGHT NOW), to the heartfelt (Top 10 Things about the person to your left), to the scary (Top 10 Would you Rathers...).
Since they were written, these lists have remained sealed and hidden, full of memories and lots of funny, waiting to be reopened at a further date. It's gonna be a good one. And for everyone who ever missed Coffee Night, be prepared to be awed by the awesome.

But let's be real, Top 10 lists aren't all we do.
-Meghan Leeburn once became convinced her dear friend Jenny was going to be deported, courtesy of Girls Night Coffee.
-Many plots were made to destroy the world.
-More than many plots were made to destroy the boys.
-...
Ok, Top 10 lists are alot of what we do.
But with all the fun that I clearly didn't describe, you're still gonna come to the next one right?
Right???...

Fighting the Evil Gingivitis

2008-05-01T00:33:00.000-07:00

Halloween.

Hillside Likes to Party... Part One

2008-04-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

The start of October also lead to the quickly approaching fall retreat being held at Keats Camp. Small group with the girls turned into a time of planning our attack on the boys. Amy's time at Uni proved useful, as the pranks started to flow and the intensity of the plans increased. Popcorn was the key to success.

Somehow we scrambled together 20 boxes of expired popcorn, water balloons and a story of how we were heading up to camp early Friday to 'prepare' for a scavenger hunt due to occupy the youth for Saturday afternoon. Craig is so trustworthy.

We got to camp and checked out the area, popped some corn and waited for everyone else to arrive. When they got there we informed Craig of the sleeping arrangements. He followed orders and thought nothing of it. As the weekend went on we decided we needed a boom box, good thing Craig brought one.

3:45am. The sabotage began.

Garbage bags were taped to the outside of the door frames of the boys cabin. The frame filled up with popcorn. Craig's boom box was placed between the doors to the two cabins plugged in and ready to go. Girls had their war paint on and their positions ready. Ladies at the back doors with fart bombs in hand, ladies on the balcony with water balloons in hand, and someone ready to turn on the wake up call to the group of unsuspecting boys fast asleep in their beds.

4:00am. JT brought sexy back and the boys were under attack.

Fart bombs in the back doors, and we began hootin' and hollerin' out the front. Faces appeared at the windows wondering what on earth we were doing and what was blocking their door. Joe appeared and opened the door to a pile of popcorn and the water balloons started to fly. The door could not be shut due to the popcorn so the boys pushed him out and all charged the door to avoid the water balloons.

4:06am. The end.

Gabe was doing the best he could and stopped all the fun by pulling the cord from the music and the silence was broken but muffled giggles from the strategically placed girls. Just as we were about to skip off to our cabin after a job well done we hear whining from inside the cabin Craig turns back in and says 'You guys just got HAD'

4:15am. The Answers.

Craig realizing he had been fooled started to tie together the clues and recalled earlier conversations of the day. It was all starting to make sense.

Here are some of those conversations...

Laura&Amy: 'Hey Craig, can we borrow your boom box for Spa night tonight?'
Craig: 'Yea sure, take it whenever.'

At dinner time (After many of the girls just woke up from a nap)
Craig: 'All your girls just had a nap? Oh no, they are gunna be up all night, good luck with that'
Laura: 'Yea, whatever...'

12:30am Saturday night
Laura: 'Craig, it is after midnight, are you not going to make everyone go to bed?'
Craig: 'Whats the big deal? Everyone is just hanging out. Are the girls awake?'
Laura: 'No been asleep for ages' (Points to the cabin, it appears the lights are out. But really the girls are covering the windows in garbage bags, and filling up water balloons)
Craig: 'Ok fine. Give them until 1.' (Meanwhile not noticing at all that during this 'spa night' neither of us spent anytime in the cabin)

9:00am. The wake up call.

Our cabin woke up to banging and yelling coming from all around our cabin. We pull back the blacked out windows to see we are surrounded. Moments pass and we realized we are under attack from the boys trying to get revenge. Key word: Trying. They are equipped with our left over water balloons, jugs, cups, and bowls of water. How are we to avoid this you ask? We just happened to have a few left over garbage bags and everyone bundled up in plastic parkas, ran out of the cabin in single file to the dining hall with war cries coming from our mouths. All 11 girls reached the balcony of the kitchen without a drop of water on them.

The boys, defeated, stomped up the stairs, to Craig standing their jaw dropped in amazement. We completely owned them and took his praises modestly.

A job well done.

The Beginning of a Beautiful...

2008-04-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

When someone makes a documentary of our lives, at some point in time, the question will probably be asked- "So did you just know right away? You know, that you two were meant to be?" No, not meant to be in the friskydangery way, but in the way that we are. Which if you know us you get already. That way.
And I can honestly say I couldn't pinpoint the real moment all the good came to be, but lets paint a picture together to pretend shall we?
Let's first begin with a Wednesday, early on in October, roughly 7-7:30pm in the Hillside sanctuary. Craig Young and Trevor Chong are inventing a game to play that night. And for every step they invent, Laura and Amy have figured out how to win. That's right. They don't even have a name for the game yet (and no Craig, ChongBall had not yet been invented), and Rico was Jumping that Shark. SHA-ZAM!!!
This game may have involved skittles (the bowling ball pin thingys, not the candy), Nerf guns, tiny blue pillows, or dodgeballs. It may have involved skittles (the candy, not the bowling ball pin thingys), other kinds of balls, or blindfolds. It may have been a combination of some of the above. And it probably didn't involve the candy... Anyways, the game doesn't really matter, what does matter is that Laura and Amy had discovered something amazing that they had in common. They are so much better than normal people. And really modest too.
If you asked a random guy from Oasis they'd probably say that they won the game that night to feel all manly and stuff, and sometimes we let them believe that (sometimes they need the ego boost), but you and I both know the real truth.
If we were to take that evening's picture and make some slight alterations- change the date, maybe the game a bit, throw some Andrew Miller in there, you can start to see the paths our lives were taking.

Roller Coaster of Awesome, welcome aboard.

2008-04-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

September 19th 2007

Craig: 'Laura this is Amy, Amy this is Laura'
Amy: 'I think we have met'
Laura: 'Informally at least'
Craig: 'Now Amy, the best way to learn about this youth group is to shadow Laura'

And it began...