FHE activities and the Fhestas

I have mentioned “the girls” or the “Fhestas” a few times in the last two entries. Well now it is time to introduce them. They are: Brittany (the mom of the group…PS, Sterling was the dad… ), Heather (her roommate), Alyssa, Amanda (they were roommates), Anna (no roommate for her) and Sharona (who was adopted into our group). Throughout the semester we would hang out all the time and do so many fun things. We did nearly everything together. It was awesome and still is awesome because we see almost all of them frequently to this day. But, now for the stories of how we first met…

It wasn’t until about a week later that we really officially met our Fhestas (as Eric taught us they are called…well, what he called them at least). However, if memory serves, my first meeting where I first recognized one of our Fhestas (Brittany) was at the BYU Creamery. It was pretty soon after finding out about these “FHE groups” that we had. I had just purchased a Kids Meal at the Grill, which according to Eric was the greatest thing there, and I was going to get my child’s scoop ice cream and Brittany was the one to help me. She recognized me and gave me about a single-and-a-half scoop ice cream cause she’s awesome! I was super excited and shared the news happily with Teddy who for some reason was not as excited as I was…oh well. Anyway, Teddy is saying right now that he doesn’t remember when he first met any of our Fhestas. Sorry girls…he doesn’t have as great of a memory as I do.

It was at our first FHE activity that we really got to know one another. We went to one the Bishopric member’s house (First Counselor I think…?) to “go swimming.” Out of all of us I believe Landon was the only one to actually swim with the cool guys next door like Mike, Nate and Evan. The rest of us stayed dry and played Apples to Apples instead. That is when we found out that Heather did ballet for like…14 years or something like that. Yeah, that number seems close-ish…? That was the beginning of one of the best summers of our adult lives…which is funny for two reasons. One, because that quote is related to The Sandlot (which is awesome cause it has baseball) and two, because our adult lives (except for Sterling) has only really had one summer.

Over time we learned what we liked and disliked and where everyone was from and what everyone did. Sterling claims he is from Boston (which he is) but he has lived like a bajillion other places too, cause his dad was in the army. So he knew a lot about guns. Teddy, as I said before grew up hunting, so he too knew a lot about guns. And Eric, well…I’m not sure why he knew about guns other than the fact that he was awesome. So, with all of their knowledge about firearms, we decided to go shooting for one of our FHE activities. We drove to the other side of Utah Lake and found a nice spot to go shoot stuff. We had balloons, targets, random things that we found on the ground like half of a Care Bear (which was obliterated by a shotgun haha) and birds that flew by even though the girls didn’t approve of the last one (I almost had it too....). But that’s beside the point. The real point is that we put a gun in everyone’s hand and let them shoot stuff cause it’s fun!

One night we were invited by the girls to go watch a movie at Heather’s brother’s house in Orem. Getting there and back was a tricky situation. None of the guys had cars on a regular basis so Amanda was the only one with a car. So, she drove most of the girls and some of the guys there ahead of time. Brittany joined me, Teddy, Adam, Landon and Eric in getting a ride with the Second Counselor of the Bishopric in getting a ride to the house. However, he could not pick us up again, but that will come in later in the story. We decided to watch I Am Legend for the movie. It was a pretty fun night…you know, other than the whole leaving us there thing.

During the same timeframe that Anthony was in town we had our tee shirt spray painting FHE activity. We had made all these different stencils that people could put on their shirts to make them look all cool and fancy. For example, Eric made one with the Invader Zim logo thing on it. Teddy made one with a pirate skull wearing an eye patch. I made one with a pineapple on the back that read “Have You Met…” on the front and “Ted” on the back under the pineapple. Everyone else made cool designs on their shirts too, like random patterns made from laying out scotch tape all over the shirt and other fun and interesting things…like that. Yeah. But that happened the same week that Anthony was there so Heather didn’t spend too much time with us specifically, mostly with him. It was only about a week later that I found out that he had just barely turned 16…yeah, you read that right…16.

There were lots of other fun times that we had. We did so much together over that semester and fun times were had by all. The good days are now gone and past, but the memories still linger. We still keep in contact and we still hang out all the time, but it just hasn’t been the same. Eric and Landon have left on their missions. Sterling moved back home. Amanda and I moved to Wyview (but I came back). Heather, Alyssa and Brittany moved all the way to Upper Heritage. I do not know where Anna moved to and Sharona has moved off campus. It is sad, but new friends were made, and will be introduced in later entries. As for Teddy and I, well…we did find something out about ourselves. We’re awesome.