Robyn Turns 28!

So, I know this is a little late, but we'll pretend that it just took a long time to post since I am on an island in the middle of the ocean.

Being that Robyn is now 28, here are some of my favorite (and not recently published) memories of her.

1. We used to entertain each other playing made-up games on road trips when we were kids. I remember we played one game where we took turns watching the second hand on a watch and seeing who could keep time with it the best.

2. Up at Camperworld, we would sit down at grandma Roush's keyboard and sing all the duets it had programmed into it. We especially loved songs like "Arthur's Theme" and "The Way We Were." Sometimes we would sing them well, but most of the time we were just having (and making) fun.

3. When Robyn broke her leg, she was in a wheelchair for a while. I loved that wheelchair. I would take it into the backyard and race it around the house for hours.

4. When I was in the first grade, Robyn dressed up as a strawberry for Halloween. While doing something in the front yard, she ripped a hole in her green tights. She was hysterical, and Kimberly was making fun of her. I am so glad we have that on home video. Classic Robyn.

5. In the seventh or eighth grade, Robyn kissed a boy named Ray Ramirez. I loved to tease her about her latin lover.

6. Around the same time as her latin lover, or maybe a little later, Robyn and Stephanie (and possibly some other girls) sang the Bette Midler version of "Miss Otis Regrets" at a Placentia Recreation Center competition. They placed, but lost to a poor rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," which only won because so many people were in it. Robyn and Stephanie were the real winners.

7. Growing up, I always felt like I was friends with all of Robyn's friends, which I didn't mind. I mean, they were all cheer leaders.

8. When Robyn was in Japan, we decided to do a little make-over of her room to welcome her home. We sanded down her dresser and replaced its hardware, painted her walls, put up some chair-rail wallpaper, and bought her some new bed linens and pillows. It was a good make-over, if you ask me.

9. Speaking of Japan, I wanted to go there so badly when I was little. My dad had gone there, and I thought it was the coolest. When Robyn won a scholarship to be an exchange student there, I was positive that I would win one too when I was her age. Unfortunately, when that time came around, my dad worked for Honda, and the scholarship had been for children of Nissan employees. Anyway, I have always been inspired by Robyn's adventurous spirit and have tried to follow in her footsteps. I'll make it to Japan someday...

10. Robyn and her high school friends used to always talk about an alien or something. I'm still not sure what they were referring to, but they would drive by it at night. I think it was a shape in a storefront window or something. I still wonder about that alien, and every time I'm driving through California at night, I just wish that I knew where it was so I could see it.

11. My freshman year of college, Robyn and I got to spend a lot of time together. She made me dinner, I bought her groceries with my meal plan, and we shared a car. She had it for the most part, but whenever I asked, she always let me borrow it. What a good sister.

12. When she was on her mission, I wrote her once. In that letter, I apologized for not writing her and told her that I would write her more often... When I was on my mission, she wrote me every week. I wish I could go back and write her, 'cause now I know how important those letters are. I'm glad she wrote me 100 times more than I wrote her on her mission.

Those are some random memories. If I was at my computer at home, I'd have a great picture to add to this. I'm not at home, though, so I'm gonna use this one from a trip we took to California in early 2007.





13. Robyn and I loved to go running with Kimberly when we visited her in California. We would leave the perpetual winter of Utah behind and embrace the sunshine in the south. On this particular running trip, Robyn had to pee really bad, so she ran up and over a hill right next to the sidewalk to urinate. I watched her run up the hill, but had to turn my head when she started pulling off her shorts before she was completely out of view.

I had to end it with something embarrassing!

Happy Birthday, Robyn.