Fighting Sultans

A Trip Down Memory Lane

2010-07-31T04:45:00.001-07:00

Remember that one time I spent the whole summer in Louisiana after I graduated from college?
Well, I do. And I've spent this whole time wishing I would have blogged about it. Now all I have is this collage of photos taken by young children.

The Alta that didn't talk took pictures that would speak a thousand words for her.

Here's to you, Summer of '09.

Paint(ing)

2010-06-18T23:01:00.001-07:00

I imagined so much more in my head. But for creating something using only the tools in MS Paint, I think it turned out okay.

"Ninja"

2009-11-15T22:48:00.000-08:00

The 2009 Academy Awards were held in Gilbert, Arizona on Friday, November 13. Sixty people showed up and no one ate the popcorn. Six movies were shown to the crowd and they voted for Kanye's Best Movie of All Time. Drumroll.

First place: What Really Goes on in Elder's Quoroum Presidency Meetings
Second place (tie): NINJA / Hey Juliet
Third place: Disney Dating

Let me tell you what, the voting was rigged. Even though I personally counted the votes, the results were not what I expected. Although I did my best to make sure I didn't win (I can't have all the glory after all), I was NOT expecting to tie with another movie. Also, with a foreign film taking the Oscar for Best Picture in 2008, I thought for sure our foreign film would rise to the top.

I don't think Blogger will let my post such a large movie file online, so screenshots will have to suffice for now. If I see you in the next 6 months, I will offer to show you the film. I'll probably have an extra copy in my shoe everywhere I go.

#27 is Down for the Count

2009-09-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

This is where Steven will be spending the next 6 months of his life.

He was at practice, playing running back over and over and over because no one else really could. As he planted his right leg after catching a pass, he was tackled in such a way that his knee fell apart. He says he doesn't remember much but he heard himself scream. He didn't pass out but he was definitely in shock because he couldn't feel any pain. Also, I asked him if he cried. He said no. He looks like he has gone through the ordeal of his life. I'm sure tonight's forecast is horrible and tomorrow's is looking gloomy as well.

Of course I don't know the details if the injury quite yet, but pictures speak louder than words. This photo may seem worthless because I don't have the graphic details captured within the pixels, but I feel like the mellow emotion and pitiful resignation to mortality beams through. I'll keep you updated on what happens after the MRI.

In the mean time, lavish him with attention via texts.

Only the Ugly Survive

2009-09-02T01:24:00.001-07:00

Nikki said it. The fish proved it. All of my beautiful fish, which were a shining credit to their sub-species, have died save one. That one that remains is ugly, spotted, puny and worthless. How did this happen??

Another Death in the Family

2009-08-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

There are two logical explanations for this:

1. Someone poisoned the fish tank.

2. I am the most horrible marine biologist of all time.

Either way, with two deaths within one week, I know I need to be on the lookout for my own life.

You Know What This Means

2009-08-27T06:29:00.001-07:00

1. That I am a bad fish mother.

2. Since my life has been intertwined with the late White Tigress, I too, am soon to be doomed to flush down the crapper.

Happy Birthday America & Nikki

2009-07-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

America turned a whopping 233 and our family celebrated it with flaming theatrics. Fireworks are, of course, illegal in Arizona. Mom asked Nikki and Stephanie to build a fire outside in the backyard. They threw our palm tree on top to fuel the flames for about 10 minutes. We roasted/melted marshmallows over the smoldering coals and ashes. Mom grilled 12 sausages, thinking they were Bratwurst. After all the propane from the grill was used up, we found the actual Brats and Mom sweated over the coals to get them cooked.

We all were pink from swimming earlier in the day, so make-up was completely boycotted. Some of us wanted to go bra-less as well, but for the greater good of the whole, all undergarments were kept on.

Nikki turned the big 2-1 today. Her new interests are: playing raquetball and camping. Her birthday presents included: deodorant, a latern and a sleeping bag. Have fun out in the wilderness. I'll be staying inside as my skin grows paler by the day.

Happy summer from the fashionable side of the family.

Happy Anniversary

2009-07-01T13:25:00.001-07:00

Today is the day we celebrate Steve and Cheryl's love and the union of their lives.

Here are the ways we kids are partying.

Heart-attacking the house.

A card to accurately describe the past.

The chocolate chips were literally melting into the frosting. It was a disaster frosting, but we plan on making another cake later, okay?

Happy Anniversary!

Class of 2009

2009-05-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

I GRADUATED!

The family, Grammy, and Megan & Craig drove all the way from Arizona to be there for my big day. Grandma and Grandpa came. Rob and Katrina and their family came from Logan, but I think Rob wandered to the art museum so I can't confirm his presence. Aubrey and Russell braved the crowds and were there, too. Thank you so much for being there everyone! It made the testimony meeting--err--ceremony bearable to sit through.

Also, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who was some part of my college years. Obviously, my parents were so supportive so consistently and are in irreplaceable part of my life. Megan, thank you! You were such a wonderful friend in my beginning years and through most of my time away in Utah. Aubrey really pulled me through the home stretch and pushed me to the finish line. You are all so awesome! And to anyone who reads this who didn't get a public thank you, don't think I haven't thought of you. But it's not the Academy Awards here.

Here are the pictures my mom took with her camera. It looked really legit, but it appears that it functions better as a camcorder. Oh well, it's all I got. Enjoy!

LIVE Living Legend

2009-04-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

I went to the Britney Spears' concert on April 14, 2009. It is now my new favorite day of the year.

The Pussycat Dolls opened and they were great, but nothing compares to the "pop princess now Queen of Pop." Everything about the concert was big. The set was huge. The speakers blew my ears out. They played videos and had lots of dancers and performers. Britney rocked hard core.

I most definitely can't pick a favorite. There's no such thing. But some of the ones that I remember the most were:
the intro with amazing circus performers including a girl who jumped 50 feet in the air and landed flawlessly on a small beam,
Circus (huge, grand, awesome production),
Piece of Me,
Radar,
Martial Arts people dancing to Gimme More (the background video was in Japanese so it was okay that Britey was costume changing the whole time),
Ooh Ooh Baby/Hot as IceBoys,
If U Seek Amy,
Me Against the Music (Bollywood!),
FREAKSHOW/PEEPSHOW (even though it was too weird),
Everybody's Looking for Something,
Get Naked, Breathe on Me/Touch of My Hand (a daredevil was carrying Britney 100 feet off the stage. I was so afraid he was going to drop the most expensive person in the building),
Break the Ice,
Do Something,
SlaveDancer Solo,
Toxic,
Baby One More Time (you have never heard so many people singing along),
and Womanizer.

Alright, you got me. I loved everything so much that I didn't leave anything out.

It didn't even matter that we were up in the nose-bleeds, or that I forgot my camera, or that my entire area was covered in someone's sticky pop from the Jazz game the day before. I was in the same room as Britney Spears.

And her parting words: "I love you, Salt Lake! It was fun! Don't drink and drive!" Oh, Britney. Always concerned about us. I love you.

Scary Art

2009-03-20T10:01:00.001-07:00

Nikki had a huge art show where her work was showcased. What the heck - I didn't see any of you there. Well, I'll blog the glory.

My Life Before Biggest Loser

2009-03-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

First of all, this picture is of Nikki with her new "fashion" bangs, not me.

There is a contest at a sandwich place in Utah. If you eat one of their 24-inch subs in less than 30 minutes, you get a free T-shirt! And if you wear that T-shirt in their store, you get a free drink.

Upon realizing that The Biggest Loser Challenge was coming our way, Nikki and I decided that we needed to have the experience. So we did. As you can see, the subs are quite large.

At first, they were tasty. But after a while of eating the same thing for 24-inches, it was not so delicious. I plowed through my sandwich, but Nikki, who put extras on hers, was struggling. We did finish in time, got our pictures on the wall, and have our shirts safely tucked away for future use.

Disgusting, I know. I realized this fact, and that's when I knew I needed to join Biggest Loser. It sucks most days (like today because I'm really hungry). But pretty soon just looking at that sandwich will make me full.

Fishies!

2009-02-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, Nikki decided that if she were ever to become old without being married she would like to be known as a "Fish Lady" rather than a "Cat Lady." Cat's are weird and smelly and everyone is allergic to them.

For the Floral Design class I'm taking, we were required to make a gift basket. Most girls brought in chocolates and movies for their boyfriends. I brought a fish from Walmart for Nikki. I figured... hey, she doesn't have a Valentine this year, so it's like the start of her Fish Lady journey. (I don't mean that for real.)

At first all we had was a 2 quart glass bowl for her Black Moor. It was choking on its own excrement within minutes. I knew that this fish had to survive longer than her crappy Beta fish from past years. I went to Petsmart and got some sweet deals on fish supplies. Also, I got my own fish because her fish needed a friend. (And plus I was doing all the work so I deserved to have something, too.)

Now our two fish live together in this little aquarium on our kitchen table. My fish is a red and white Ryukin named Squeegie. I don't care how many rules we're breaking, as long as our hearts aren't.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Birthday, Nikki!

2009-01-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Nikki's 20.5 birthday today. We had 1/2 a cake and sang 1/2 the birthday song.

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T00:22:00.001-08:00

Let me tell you the quick version of how New Years went down at the Hengen house. This is a first-hand account.
Stephanie was at a Stake dance that she hated and wanted to leave. She was texting Dad to arrange a swift pickup. Steven and his friends had just come back from a different Stake dance they had been at the whole night. Why they decided to come home and play Call of Duty instead of sweep some beautiful girl off her feet at the strike of midnight is beyond me. They were downstairs and Dad, Mom, Crystal and I were upstairs playing our 4th round of Nertz. Mom was killing everyone and even though she had won the round she didn't call it so that she could rack up the points. Eventually we heard the sounds and smells of the new year - firecrackers and the lingering sulfer. So we had missed the big countdown for the sake of getting our last few cards out into the pile. We went outside because people were sending off puny little fireworks into the air. There was actually a lot of commotion, which has been rare in the decade we've lived here. Crystal, wanting to join in on the festivities, made noise with the only thing available - the squeaky gate. So as she was moving it on its hinges back-and-forth the rest of us went inside to get out of the "cold." The dryer buzzed when we got in to top it all off.

And that was it. Stephanie and Nikki came home and we said prayer and went to bed.

Hope everyone's celebration was just as exciting!

My Latest Minimum-Wage Job

2008-11-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

As most everyone knows, I quit my job with BYU. For several reasons, it just wasn't working out. Thinking I could go at least the rest of the semester without a job, I only casually looked around for work.

There is this bakery in Provo called Kneaders. Anyone who is anyone knows about it here. They have all-you-can-eat french toast every morning for five bucks, which is every student's dream. Thinking that I could live beyond the dream by working there, I applied online (casually, of course, not expecting to hear from them anytime soon). Ten minutes later I get a call and have an interview set up immediately. I drive over, schmooze the guy, and he says he'll chew on and get back to me before the weekend. Two hours later he calls me back and I'm offically hired as a manager.

So every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I drive 4 blocks to the local Kneaders. I get there at 6:00am and bake pastries, cut sandwich bread, prep salads and basically get the whole store ready for the day. It didn't take long to realize that people who eat once at Kneaders love it forever. Their lunches are rather expensive, but if you can afford it, they're worth it. Their pastries are even more overpriced, so don't waste your money. Since I'm a manager, I'll try them for you and let you know how they taste. Give me a couple more years of baking experience and I'll be able to give you something just as delicious.

Actually, in trying to beat the system by working for Kneaders (so I could eat all the free food I wanted), I got sucked into it. Employees don't get free food and there's no such thing as "mess ups." The discount is so puny that your friends get offended when you offer to use it. But I can't resist eating it almost everytime I go into work. I'm slowly becoming the most over-fed Relief Society president in our zip code.

JACKPOT

2008-10-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, to keep it touch with my Japanese friends, I go to the ghetto batting cages at Trafalga. The bats are beat up and dead so my hands tremble (not with anticipation but with the pain from every connection with the 2 pound softball). Since it's already 36 degrees here in Provo, we didn't last very long outside. While my Japanese friends played DDR, Nikki and I turned to the ticket-making games. We lost miserably at Skeetball, but we found our true calling at "Jackpot," the dumb game where the light cirles around and you stop it by pressing a button. To make a long story short, I hit the Jackpot. I bought Nikki a couple dinky presents and everyone glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth.

Imagine my winnings if I were in Vegas...

Conference Weekend

2008-10-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Nikki and I went up to bother Grandma and Grandpa for Conference. I got tickets from a co-worker and begged Nikki to go with me, but in the end she denied me (it's becoming a disturbing trend with her lately). Luckily, Rob and Katrina brought their kids... who are even cuter than I remember. Kallie has calmed down a lot. Maybe the non-stop rain and her birthday shopping trip helped, but mostly she just watched me play a Bully game on the Wii. She listened excitedly
to Nikki's endless story about her wisdom teeth.

See? This picture clearly shows that Kallie is sadistically enjoying Nikki's story of misery and woe at getting her teeth drilled out. Yes, she's keeping her teeth in an oversized Ziplock bag.

Katrina drank diet rootbeer all weekend to get this baby slim. Not really. It wouldn't have helped, though, since Grandma kept feeding him potatoes and meat-flavored baby food. This last gem was filmed during the last session of Conference, which I am ashamed to admit that I did not see or hear. We discovered that Kamdem likes to eat college girls.

A Senior in a Freshman Class

2008-10-01T13:52:00.001-07:00

So the first day of my Senior year put me behind a freshman fro the size of her overstuffed Jansport. It reminded me of a huge, porous sea sponge.

Ice Cubes and Ants - A Pioneer Day Party

2008-07-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

"Money CAN buy you happiness; don't ever let anyone tell you it can't."
--Aubrey

Since we had the day off school and work for Pioneer Day (if you didn't get the day off, don't feel bad--no one outside of BYU did either), my sister and I needed something to do. At 2:00am when Nikki got home from work, we were discussing the bright future of our local holiday.

"Let's watch a movie and get ice cream!" Nikki began, enthusiastically. Her mood dropped quickly as she realized, "It will have to be one we already have because we don't have any money."

"Well, if we don't have any money we can't get ice cream either." I noted. Knowing what it's like to be poor and see where the superfluous, finer things of life try to creep in is not a skill I wish I was so fine-tuned in.

Nikki, oddly in a good mood, was either brightening the situation or making horrible fun of it. "We could just make ice cubes."

Ice cubes. Yes, frozen water in fun shapes was going to be our Pioneer Day treat. We were going to periodically freeze our tap water into puzzle piece-shaped ice cubes, put them in a large bowl (you know, the kind you usually put popcorn in), and "eat" them as we watched a movie we'd already seen 100 times. Are you kidding me?

Listen, money can buy happiness! Ice cream is happiness. A new movie is happiness. It's not just the material benefits that you reap from money, it's the emotional. Do you honestly think you'll have the confidence to invite people over to join you in your poverty? No. And therefore you suffer emotionally. Your creativity is also stifiled because any fun thing you think of to do costs money. How is this happiness? It's not.

Well anyway, some friends came over. BUT... we did buy ice cream. And we just so happened to get a Blockbuster movie in the mail. However, we were not free from the reaches of penury (look it up--expand your vocabulary). The foul smell from the garbage can in the kitchen could not be tolerated any longer. I took the bag out of the can and as I was about to set it onto the floor to begin the tying process, an entire colony of ants was in my way!!

Nikki swept them away and then we sprayed Glass Cleaner (yes an off-brand... do you think we can afford Windex?) all over the floor. This picture is of her and Bonnie in the process.

And that was Pioneer Day in Madison 9. We brushed our teeth and went to bed.

C:\dosGames>PRINCE

2008-07-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

My name is Tiffani. I work at an office all day. Once day, in the midst of my "squeezing," I got nostalgic and started playing delightfully fun games from my childhood. The most intense of these games was the classic Prince of Persia. I became frustrated with the difficulty of the level and was exasperated. My co-worker, Marci, commented, "it must be hard fighting sultans all day." And so, a blog was born. In this picture, my sultan-slaying side-kick is taking her turn at the dungeons of Jaffar. She proved to be a mighty force when she figured out how to drink potions to restore the ailing prince's health.