Kalispell, Montana

We had the pleasure of going to Kalispell, Montana for the wedding of one of Erik's good friends. Jared, the groom, is from Erik's hometown of Stanwood. I was worried that our car wouldn't make the drive, but we left early Thursday morning and were in Kalispell nearly 12 hours later. The drive was supposed to take 8 1/2 hours, but Erik missed a turnoff without realizing it and we ended up taking a bit of a detour. Oh well, it was a beautiful drive on a beautiful day. Strangely enough, I was able to crochet in the car!!! I usually get car-sick when I look away from the road for any length of time, but something was definitely working in my favor.Kalispell is a quaint little town somewhere in the middle of the never-ending state of Montana (if you have ever driven the I-90 straight through you will understand what I mean by never-ending). I did find a beautiful yarn store when we were there. It was incredible! There were rows upon rows of yarn!! They had a rather large alcove at the back with couches and chairs that you could knit in or just relax in if you wanted to (Erik appreciated this). And they had plenty of fabulous yarns to marvel at, to feel, and to enjoy. It was lovely.

Erik was one of the groomsmen so he had his duties to attend to. I spent my time in the hotel knitting and watching TV. It was exactly what I needed at that point in time. I'm in the middle of exams and papers and having time to myself to relax was so refreshing.I don't know if any of you have been to an American Wedding. They are strange. Period. The ceremony started at 3:00pm and the whole kit'n caboodle (huh?) was done by 7:30pm. Including the clean up. Strange. The strangest thing about it... they all said this was normal!!! Somebody tell me it isn't! Don't get me wrong, I loved this wedding, but one of the best things about weddings is spending time with people you don't usually get to see. A bunch of our Stanwood friends were out in Montana and it would have been wonderful to hang out with them longer. We did end up going to a restaurant to hang out, but we had just eaten dinner and it wasn't the best environment to hang out in. We were hoping to go bowling instead, but small-town Kalispell was completely shut down.

Waiting for the ceremony to start. These two little boys loved us. And I mean LOVED us. The littler one was stuck to me. He asked me to dance with him all night long. He was so sweet. He was the flower-boy :) It was adorable.

The groomsmen goofing off a couple minutes before the wedding started.

Heather and Jared.

Erik speeching at the reception. Him and Casey wrote a Jared Manual for Heather. It was pretty funny.

With the groom.

This is a complete tangent, but I enjoyed everything being shut down on the weekend. Call me old-fashioned, but it made me feel almost nostalgic for some strange reason. I love small towns.

We went for breakfast the morning after the wedding with most of Team Stanwood. I love hanging out with Erik's friends. They make me laugh constantly and tell me a lot about Erik's younger years. All weekend they were mocking me incessantly for (1) my Canadian accent - they would trick me into saying words and then laugh at me, and (2) Using my knife to cut up my food and put it on my fork. We left for home right after breakfast and obviously made it home safely.

Jared, Heather, Me, and Erik

The Olsons, the Boots and Hans

JB

I get to hang out with Joel Bron tomorrow and I am pumped.

My Lipoma

You may not know what a lipoma is. I didn't until I had one myself. Actually, I didn't know what it was until I had already had it for 3 years.

According to Wikipedia,

a lipoma is a benign tumor composed of fatty tissue. These are the most common form of soft tissue tumor. Lipomas are soft to the touch, usually movable, and are generally painless. Many lipomas are small (under 1 cm in diameter) but can enlarge to sizes greater than 6 cm. Lipomas are commonly found in adults from 40 - 60 years of age, but can also be found in children. The most common type is the "superficial subcutaneous lipoma", ie. just below the surface of the skin. Most occur on the trunk, thighs, and on the forearms, although they may be found anywhere in the body where fat is located.

Interesting. My lipoma was painless (unless pressure was applied to it) and was just bigger than 1 cm. My lipoma was on my head, nicely covered by my hair which meant it only came up when people were doing my hair. It has been my constant companion for the past six years.

Today, I scratched my head and felt something strange. It turned out that I scratched a layer of fat off my lipoma. It was like... a large piece of dandruff. Not alarmingly large, but large enough for me to know it wasn't dandruff. I felt my head and there was what seemed to be a tiny hole at the center of my little fatty friend. I decided to give him a little squeeze and felt something give way a bit so I asked my brother-in-law (the only person home) to see if there was something coming out. Sure enough, he confirmed that it looked like a giant zit popping. I ran to the bathroom with him and we watched in awe as I continued to squeeze out copious amounts of fat. From the top of my head. From my lipoma, my little fatty friend. It was awesome! We sat in the bathroom for a good 10 minutes while I continued to squeeze and squeeze and fat continued to burst out of the top of my head. It was like a giant eruption of fat. Seriously. It looked like fat they remove during liposuction. It could have been lard. It felt like warm candle wax... You know? Totally cool. Totally bizarre.

We decided to take some pictures. This is probably disgusting, but we thought it was awesome. In fact, at one point I even heard my BIL saying, "Man, I wish I had one of those!" None of the pictures really show much, but pretend that they do. Imagine fat coming out of the top of your head.

These pictures are of the aftermath.

A bit of perspective. The hole was small relative to the size of the lipoma.
It was like a huge underground zit.
And my hair looks matted and disgusting because of the blood, fat, and other juices seeping out of my head.

A little closer. I don't know what those digit things are poking out of my head.
I'm waiting for Erik to come home to do a proper inspection.
Gross?

This is about 1/4 of what came out... maybe less than 1/4.
And those aren't flat pieces either.
Some are taller than they are wide.

Now my head hurts. The pain is pretty localized to where my lipoma once was, but kind of an all around headache now. I can't believe it's gone.

Shawna

I know we are late but...