Dearest Lovelies,
I believe there needs to be more happiness and laughter in everyone’s life. Laughing is good for you. Did you know laughter lowers the levels of cortisol in the body? Cortisol suppresses the immune system. Lowering these levels enhances the work of the immune system and may prevent disease. 15 minutes of laughter equals the benefit of 2 hours sleep.. One good belly laugh burns off 3 1/2 calories. Laughing for 15 seconds adds two days to your life span. Plus laughing is fun! I have been reading back on old journals and found some hilariously silly memories that I am going to share with you. You can’t make this stuff up. Here are five little stories in the life of me! I hope they make you laugh or entertain you in some shape or form…
*MODEL MADNESS* Senior year of high school… my friends McHale, Brooke, Hannah, and I have always been fans of the TV show America’s Next Top Model. We would get together on Wednesdays and watch it religiously. So we decided to start our own little fan club. We went to the T-Shirt making shop and chose these hot pink T-shirts and had “ANTM” put on the front and the back had our names along the bottom (mine said Charley, Brooke’s said Brooke, you get the picture) and on the top we had the saying “Wanna be on toP?” If you watch ANTM you know that’s the theme song. It says that over and over. Welllll apparently creepy guys & immature high school boys didn’t understand this… needless to say we learned our lessons in the halls of our high school and on pop runs at gas stations at three in the morning when guys would try to hit on us and say comments like “I wanna be on top!” Eww. From then on, we always either wore jackets with the shirts (which we’d wear to school each Wednesday the show was on) or only wore them at home. We also got used to having to explain to all of our teachers/adults that “No we weren’t ever contestants on the actual TV show (I wish!)… we just love it!”
Brooke & I (yes my shirt says Wanna make out…almost as bad as the Wanna be on top? Shirts turned out!)
*YOU’RE MY FAVORITE KID(S)* My dad always thought he could get away with things… such as a time about a year ago that I love. He sent me a text message that said “Don’t tell the other kids, but you’re my favorite. I love you.” Too bad my other three biological siblings were in the same room and our cell phones all went off at the same time with that same generic-supposed-to-be-heartfelt-and-personal message to the four of us! Thanks dad!
*The Brady Bunch* FYI everyone I meet refers to my family as the Brady Bunch (little do they know it’s basically true minus the constant chaotic drama). Why you ask? I have eleven siblings… yes I said eleven! (Three biological, eight stepsiblings). Here’s the story… my mom Angie is married to my stepdad Robert Allen—he has four sons Tyler 22, Jordan 21, Colton 18, and Tanner 14. Then there’s my dad Ron who is married to Angie (confusing, most definitely)—she has two sons Kyle 19 and Jaxon 10 and two daughters Hallie 14 and Adilyn 8. Then there’s my real siblings (I’ve mentioned them numerous times but I’ll introduce them again) sisters McHale 19 and Jordan 16 and my brother Christian 14 (we call him my twin seven years apart because he was born on my birthday!). Now repeat that ten times fast!!
STEPBROTHERS—Tyler, Tanner, Colton, & Jordan
STEPMOM & SIBLINGS—Hallie, Kyle, Adi, Jaxon, & Angie
MY DAD & STEPMOM
MY MOM & STEPDAD
Some of the "Brady Bunch"… We got double takes everywhere we went in Vegas last November! And people were more in shock when they discovered this wasn't even all of us!
SISTERS-McHale, Me (Charley), & Jordan at the Extreme Home Makeover VIP party.
BROTHER Christian & Me (Rude little brother won’t let me kiss him on the cheek!)
Silly Face in a Hole picture I made for my annual Christmas family newsletter last year.
(Since my parents divorce when I was 12, my parents have dated NUMEROUS people & been married & divorced quite a few times between the two of them ...I won't even get into that because I assume you are already having trouble keeping up... I still have trouble remembering everyone at times haha!)
*My-Oh-My* A few months ago, my family on my mom’s side held a family lunch at my greatgrandparents-Fenton & Elsie-home. It was a joy to see and hug them because they are in their late seventies and we don’t know how much time they have left. They are the sweetest. It was their 67th anniversary (now that's a true love story). That’s inspiring. Love can last forever. My grandma Annette & Grandpa Curt Selders were there, as well as my gram’s brothers Bruce and Larry. Larry flew down from Illinois. His daughter Trisha, she’s 25, came down from Idaho Falls. My mom, McHale, Jordan, and I were the only other ones there. It was a lovely lunch and nice to spend time with the family. Trisha, McHale, and I talked for hours about life, boys and everything. Well onto the craziness which is Bruce (who looks like Dog the Bounty Hunters twin).
Right before we ate the anniversary cake, Bruce pulls out a boombox and makes an announcement. He said he wanted to play a song in honor of great grandma & grandpa. Everyone was thinking, okay maybe it will be a song they danced to in the fourties or a love song…wrong, oh-so-wrong, dead wrong.
The room was silent and all of the sudden this hillbilly sounding song starts playing and a lady with this yodel-like voice starts singing while halfway through all these children join her in the background as a banjo plays. Bruce was standing there as serious as can be while everyone else in the room is looking around at each other, our eyes communicating a resounding “What the hell?” We all tried soooo hard not to laugh. I was literally biting my cheeks, Jordan and McHale were covering their mouths with their hands. You could tell everyone was trying their hardest to not laugh.
My mom texted me “What the hell? Is he serious? Seriously?!”
I texted back “Our family is BEYOND dysfunctional…”
Then all of the sudden, these baby kids start singing “I love you! Yay!’ over and over and over again, and that’s when everyone burst out laughing. We laughed harder than I can remember laughing in the longest time. Wow. And the best part was when grandpa Fenton asked “Can we turn this off?” Haha priceless!
I found out the song was called “My Oh My” by Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill, and the Little Hillbillies. I hope any of out there who are fans of this song/band don’t take offense! Everyone has their own taste. I am not trying to discredit their talent, I can't sing to save my life (no matter how much I wish I could). It was just unexpected and unfitting for the situation to play that song, a moment out of Napoleon Dynamite!
Listen to it for yourself! http://www.thelittlehillbillies.com/multimedia
Just scroll down the list of songs that appear after you click the above link for “My Oh My” and you will understand the hilarity of the situation.
Wow it wasn’t even near December and I gained so much material for my annual newsletter. (For the past four years, I have been writing a family newsletter with funny moments and pictures that I distribute at our family Christmas party! It’s always a hit. We read it aloud.)
Doesn't he look like Dog? Do you see the resemblance?
*Don’t Throw Your Number Out The Window To Cute Boys* OKAY.... Last summer. Soooo McHale and I were driving and had the windows down, music blasting, the usual. A mosquito that was HUGE flies into the car. We freaked out and pulled over and got out to let it out. Well these two boys rode by on bikes and slowed down when they got near us and were talking about us being cute. So they waved and rode down the road. We laughed and then decided to be crazy and chase after them! Haha so we did and found them and I hurried and put our numbers and wrote "TEXT US" with a heart on piece of paper and threw it out the window as we passed them!!! Hahahaha. Oh my they were shocked and McHale and I saw them chasing after it and grab it. We laughed our heads off. Well they texted us later.... yeah they were like 15 and in high school!!! Eww haha. No bueno. So we told them they were way too young and gave them our little sister Jordan's number. Moral of this story.... DO NOT throw your number out the window at boys (even if they look old because they most likely aren't... or they could be creepers/killer/you-don't-know... and do not spend your summer in Pocatello because you will get bored and do crazy things like that!!
I hope you are all having a magnificent summer. And I hope you enjoyed these few stories (out of the million that occur in my life).
With love,
Charley Brooke
