1987

Today we celebrate the birthday of my favorite little sister, Whitney. In honor of the fact that it's her birthday and I forgot to mail her card Monday, I am using this opportunity to exploit a little bit about her for the rest of the world to enjoy. All three of you who read my blog, anyway.

I remember my Mom being pregnant with Whitney. No, I don't remember how it happened, but I have one snapshot memory of my mom kneeling on the floor, and pulling up her shirt so we could all see her tummy. I think the baby was moving because she was letting us all put our hands on her stomach and I was thinking, "Um, it feels like a stomach.." because I couldn't feel the baby moving. At any rate, it was the first time I poked Whitney. One of the last times I poked Whitney I got a broken toe, and I haven't done it since. And even though I was only two and a half, I remember her birth. I won't go into details, but mostly they involved the waiting room, wondering what was going on, and eating tiger bars.

After she quit being a baby and could walk, Whitney and I were best friends for a long time. All the older kids would go off to school and left just me home to play with Whitney. Even when I went to school it was still only a half day of kindergarten (all day kinder is sooooo wrong), so we'd play a lot. We could play for HOURS with our cabbage patch dolls. Mostly mine was bossing hers around and I think I scarred her for life. I love this picture of us, we used to wear our slips EVERYWHERE, mostly when we were A. Playing mountain goats (Thank you, National Geographic for the inspiration) and we were jumping on the fireplace or B. When we were getting married. Groom never showed.

Somehow Whitney skipped from four to whatever age and went and got married. After she announced her engagement, I think most people said, "Is she even old enough to drive yet?" ... I know! That's how it felt! But somehow she got older although I still see her as eight. I mean, twenty. Two. And I really like the guy that she married. They are a great couple. I think she is turning twenty three today, although in reality it's more like thirteen. Since when has she gotten so old?? Anyway, I am going to share twenty three fun things about Whitney:

1. She has fabulous hair, I've always loved it
2. She has a great sense of leadership-at eighteen when most girls her age were smoking pot, she was volunteering with the Red Cross. When Katrina hit New Orleans, she basically ran all the shelters in our area by herself. She's pretty awesome.
3. She has had more stitches as an adult than as a child. ... yeah, I know, what gives?
4. She no longer thinks I am the smartest person ever and has quit being my personal gopher. Although that ended years ago, I am still not over it.
5. She is taller than me. And Tiffany. And Katie. And Mom. But not Jeff, he reigns supreme.
6. When we were little I used to beat her up frequently. My Dad's favorite story is when we were about two and four. I shoved her down and took her toy, and of course, was walking away triumphantly. Something inside her snapped, and instead of crying, she got this "look" in her eyes, jumped up and ran over to me, grabbed my hair, threw me on the ground and took her toy back. Um-rude.
7. When we were eighteen and twenty, she refused to give me her juice box. We proceeded to get into another fight. I won that time. While my Dad was watching his daughters roll around the dirt at the paintball field and whack each other, he commented, "And my son sells Mary Kay." He does, and I highly recommend the time-wise 3 in 1 face wash.
8. When we were twenty-two and twenty-five we got into roughly the same fight, although we will never know who won because Katie broke it up. No juice box involved.
9. She has super pretty grey eyes.
10. She used to drive a red truck named Roy. It was Ben's truck, then Katie's, then mine, then she stole it and got gecko's painted on it.
11. She could probably save your life, she is a life guard, first responder, Wilderness First Responder, and knows how to tie eight different knots. Including a bowline.
12. She repels off two hundred foot bridges.
13. She takes pictures of bears for a living.
14. She has really a really pretty face never needs to wear make up.
15. She's my Mom's favorite, and don't you believe that woman for a second when she says, "They're all my favorite!" Cause we all know the truth.
16. I like her clothes.
17. I like her snowboarding boots best-oh wait. Its cause they're mine.
18. I like it when she lets my squirrels live in her truck for two days. They liked it, too.
19. She is obsessed, and I mean, OBSESSED about Lord of the Rings. The last time we played the trivia game with her, she played for all of us and won. (Insert hissing noise)
20. I miss her so much, we had so much fun living in Idaho.
21. She always tells this crazy story of how Katie and I were fighting and almost ended up in the canal water but Dad rescued one of us and whateverblahblahblah but none of us remember it. We always give her that weird look like, What .. are.. you .. talking .. about?
22. Her famous quote is, "I'm stupid!" It was said on August 17, 2000, the day Tonia and Ben got married. Her next best quote was said to a group of Boy Scouts, "Get naked, go long!" See, we had just watched Home Improvement where Tim built a "Man's bathroom" and he told Al to catch a football as he was running to the shower. It made sense on TV. ... haha, now that we're on quotes... one time she wanted to tell us what some girl had said, because it involved swear words she tried to beep it out. Uh, but she didn't beep it out, she said, "I don't have a fu%$&#% beep clue why the h#ll beep that fu#$^%&# beep happened..." Oooooh man, still makes me laugh every time I think about it.
23. She is a great friend.

So there we go. I could go on, but I better not. She might kill me. But you can read more about her by checking out her blog. Whitney, happy birthday! I hope you had a great day today, everyone was thinking about you and I am going to eat some blue bell for ya!!! Love you!