Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to my best friend!  It's awesome that we get to be best pals AND share a birthday.  Not too many people get to do that, so I'm lucky.  The guy next to me at the restaurant Mom and I ate at today was also having birthday tiramisu, compliments of the house, and he wished me a good day and me him, so I was a little less lonely for my birthday buddy, but still - I wish I had my twin sister Megan Aileen Moore Taylor to celebrate with today.

So I am posting a few incriminating charming snapshots of us together to say "Hey, you!  Happy and best thirty-first birthday ever!!!"  And since my scanner works only some of the time, and all other times exists only to thwart me, most of these pics are pictures of pictures.  Like a meta-picture.  Yay!

I'm with Grandma (my mom's mom).  Megan is with Grandpa.  We're irresistibly cute.

I found this picture of right before our final sixth grade choir and band concert in Megan's room.  I couldn't resist!  It perfectly captures sixth grade, our attitudes toward being photographed, and our thoughts about performing publicly in front of our parents.

The first day of freshman year in high school.  Something possessed me to dye my hair the color of my polo the night before.  Why Megan didn't stop me, I'll never know.  Why she's wearing a shirt I should never have purchased from the Eddie Bauer Men's section, I don't know either.  We had such lovely, girlish figures.  I guess it is better that we opted for the 1990s "grunge" look while still listening to Whitney Houston, than the 1990s bare-midriff look while rocking out to NIИ.

Grandma Mickey and Grandpa Bud had us come visit in Southern Utah after our 1999 EFY (Especially For Youth) church summer camp at BYU, and as part of the trip, took us to an unforgettable night at Tuacahn Theater to see "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Grandpa didn't bat an eye when we begged to ride the camel!  (That's me up front with unfortunate bangs, Megan on the back with long legs and a great tan.)

Grad night, June 2000: We'd both studied so much we'd earned scholarships to BYU... and would be attending Fall semester without a tan!

BYU 2001 - 2002 Hinckley Hall girls!  We had some of our greatest and most wonderful memories from this year, with these friends, in this dorm.

Reuniting and about to part ways - Megan has just returned from Paris (and would very much like to go back), and I am about to go to NYC on a mission (and would very much like to stay in Provo, UT):

Megan and her three charming/talented/beautiful daughters came to visit for ten days through August 2nd, and one of the best memories we made was going to the Enchanted Forest, a magical little wonderland that had once been an elementary-school field-trip destination for mommies and aunties. While wandering through Alice's tea party, crawling down rabbit holes, and wending our way through crooked houses and Indian caves, Megan and I joked that we had never "lived the dream" of going on the alpine ride or the log flume that we were too scared to try as fifth graders.  I was determined to do what I hadn't dared to at age 10 - Megan was not so cavalier.  But something about being away from home on vacation, knee-deep in memories, and showing her babies "what Mom used to do" made my sister decide to show her husband a different side of herself.  That, and I cajoled and begged.  "C'mon, it'll be fun!  You don't want to come here and sit out on all the excitement again, do you?  No way!  Let's go!"

And so we went.

Megan loved the Alpine ride - she was super nervous and told me "not to talk to her," then screamed and cheered the whole way.  It was so much fun to finally ride the darn thing after shaking our heads and shaking in our little boots the whole time as just about all the other kids went on the ride during our field trip twenty years before.  We got off feeling triumphant.  "Log flume next!" I chirped, and Megan dug her heels in.  But I coaxed and actually got her in line, "just to see it."  

Assessing the danger.

Innocence enleafed.

Ready for anything!

As we were propelled up precipitous cliffs and then rocked gently and oh-so-slowly toward the various plunges of doom, I was instructed to "shut up" and "leave her alone."  I responded by giggling to myself.  

And then came the moment I'd be waiting for and she'd been dreading.  Ha!

Afterwards, breathless and splashed, Megan gasped, "I've had two children, and I wasn't as scared before either of them as I was on THAT ride!"

I frowned.  "Um, you've had three children."

"Yeah, well, shut up!" Megan responded, scrambling to get out of the Log Flume of Torture.  But she bought the picture above and looked proud of herself, if terrified.  Camryn could tell it was a blast and asked if she, too, could go on the Log Flume.  And who did she select to go with her?  Auntie Katie!  I was so thrilled.  (Megan was relieved, I'm sure.)

Megan and I had raced each other on the "Old Woman In The Shoe" slide, conquered Alpine heights, and rushed down raging rapids in a flume, and I felt like my twin sister and I were school kids again, best friends ready to conquer anything together.  What a fantastic feeling!

Enchanted Forest, a truly magical place:

And here is a dorky self-portrait to mark the day.  Happy birthday to you, Megan!!!