My Valentine

So, Valerie asked New York City to be her Valentine, leaving James to petition Nebraska. I haven't heard yet how that worked out, but I staked my claim on Spokane.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Spokane was my Valentine. And oh, what a day we had together!
I spent the weekend with my best friend Kimball and her family. Kimball's been home from her mission for a week now, and we're back to being "Brimball" ... along with all of the craziness that comes with it. NO reservations!
Kimball's family were ALL my Valentines. There were 9 of us at the house all weekend. Dad, Mom, Lacey-24, Kimball-22, Isaac-20, (19-year old Ryan is on his mission in Jakarta, Indonesia), Tyler-18, and Kyle-14. Rachel Frongner and I were the visitors, but Dad introduced us to everyone as his other daughters. We're all family!
I thought I'd tell the story of the weekend through our "table cloth quotes." In my previous apartments, we'd always have a vinyl tablecloth and we'd write the funny things people say on the tablecloth in permanent marker. Those of you who've lived with me know all about this. It wasn't 20 minutes into the weekend where we started collecting tablecloth quotes!

Quote #1:
Context: A few members of Kimball's family are sick. They're blaming Kimball for bringing home some foreign disease from Australia. We were talking about this as we were making sleeping arrangements for the night.
Brooke: "Did you bring bugs home from Australia? Germs? Cooties?"
Kimball: "Yep! Wanna go share a bed?"

Quote #2:
Context: Apparently I have a drooling problem. We often wrestle and sit on each other, and I always have to be careful to not drool! It's kind of an ongoing joke with us. Saturday morning, we woke up to greet Rachel and Lacey who'd arrived in the middle of the night. I was excited and in the middle of my sentence, I totally drooled onto the kitchen floor.
Brooke: "Oh! I just drooled! Dat's gross!"
Kimball: "You're like Targhee!" (my dog)
Brooke: "Yep! Sorry. Whenever I get excited, I salivate!"

Quote #3: When I surprised Kimball at the airport last week, she freaked out. She backed up and ran into an airline pilot, and then tackled me while yelling: "What are you doing in Salt Lake!?" We were rehashing this story about how she wasn't a very reverent missionary.
Kimball: "Yeah. Aren't missionaries supposed to present 'quiet dignity'?"
Dad: "'Quiet dignity' and 'Brooke' don't belong in the same sentence!"

Quote #4:
Context: Rachel has always made fun of the way I scratch my nose. I don't think it's weird. I've always done it that way. Apparently, I'm the only one, and it's turned into quite the object of mockery! So, my nose itched. I scratched it. Rachel mimicked me and expected Kimball to do the same. Rachel kept hinting to Kimball to follow suit. Instead of scratching her own nose, she turned and did it to mine! I flipped out and yelled,
Brooke: "You can itch your friends and you can itch your nose, but you can't itch your friend's nose!!"

Quote #7:
Context: The first month Kimball and I were roommates, I passed out onto the kitchen floor, convulsed and bashed my head into the floor, splitting my eyebrow open. Kimball sat on the kitchen stool and watched the whole thing. She never got off the stool. Our roommate, Jeniel came running out from her bedroom to help me. Kimball never got up. That's now a funny story we like to tell about how she's always been there for me. When Kimball and Rachel were roommates, Kimball had her wisdom teeth out and got up in the middle of the night and passed out. What nobody else knew about that story was that she'd gotten up to go to the bathroom and woke up on the floor in a puddle. She'd told me, but nobody else. During this conversation I said,
Brooke: "Kimball wet her pants!" And Kimball seemed pretty embarrassed that I'd let that slip. My response: "Sorry. Was I not supposed to tell? That was two years ago! Secrets have a two year expiration date! I can't be expected to hold them in for any longer!!"

Quote #6: Kyle had made a heart for Valentine's Day to decorate the door. He wanted to write, "I give you my heart" in French, but couldn't remember the French word for "heart." He ended up writing: "Je te donne mon pomme de terre!" Which means: "I give you my potato!"
We were preparing for dinner and dad was taking potatoes off of the cooking skewer things and putting them on a plate that Kimball was holding. One potato totally exploded!! Kimball screamed then yelled: "I give you my potato!!!! The potato exploded on me!!"

Quote #7: A whole lot of funny quotes surrounding one particular event--It's a Madsen family tradition on holidays to go around the dinner table and everyone says something they like about each other.
Mom: "Does anyone know what they like about Kyle?"

Dad: "I am amazed that wherever Kyle goes, there's not one, but a FLOCK of girls!"
Kyle: "I like that, too."

Lacey had zoned out for a minute and jumped in out of nowhere: "I love Tyler cuz ... is that who this is about?"

Moving around the circle, Kyle and Tyler were always the last to come up with their "reasons." And they often got skipped. We were on Isaac, and we thought everyone was done but apparently Tyler and Kyle hadn't gone yet. I was next.
Lacey: "I love Brooke because ..."
Tyler and Kyle in unison: "I like Isaac!!!!"

After going around the circle, I realize that I have quite the reputation at the Madsen household. Their reasons for liking me were off the wall! There was more laughing than anything during all of this.
Dad: "Tyler, it's your turn. Why do you like Brooke?"
Tyler: "I'm trying to think of more adjectives!"
Dad: "There aren't enough adjectives to describe Brooke. We need a thesaurus!"
Mom: "You could just tell her you like her because she's pretty or something."
Thanks, mom, for the cop-out answer.

Kyle: "I like Kimmie because she thinks it's funny when it's not and it's actually pretty lame."
Tyler: "So really, he likes you because you're lame."
Kimball: "I feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Kimball was explaining why she loves Rachel and was talking about all the late-night talks we all had.
Kimball: "Sleeping was not one of those things we did."

I was explaining why I loved Lacey. I was trying to tell her that I'd want her as my friend, even if she wasn't Kimball's sister. I first met her through Kimball, but then I really got to know her while Kimball was on her mission and grew to love her independent from her sister. But, what came out was: "Sometimes you have a friend and you get to know them, and then you get to know their family, but they're usually like accessories .... but you're not!" Ugh. I don't think that came out right.

Quote #8:
We're all sitting on the couch just bugging each other. Kimball and I are in each others' laps. Tyler comes along with a pen and tries to write on my foot. My hands are pinned and I can't defend myself. Kimball shoves him away: "Hey! Dat's a temple!"

Quote #9:
There were scriptures EVERYWHERE in their house. We used them all the time. Kyle bumped something and a set of scriptures fell to the floor.
Kyle: "Ah!!! The Word of God!!"

Quote #10:
Mom was telling a serious story about a guy who got into a car accident up in the mountains.
Mom: "And some cow jumped in the middle of the road."

Quote #11:
Kimball's been in Australia for a year and a half. She's cold in Washington and there's snow everywhere. We had been to a fireside, got our slices of pie to go and stepped out into the parking lot. It was snowing outside.
Kimball's observation: "There's snow in my pie!!"

Quote #12:
A couple of us couldn't finish our slices of pie, so Kyle took them from us.
Kyle: "I'm the garbage boy!"
But Tyler helped him finish our slices. So, Kyle did the math.
Kyle: "I ate one and two quarters slices of pie!"

Quote #13:
Kyle's a spaz. He really is. And it's really fun to point that out a lot. His siblings give him a hard time, but it's all in love. We were talking about this and Kyle said:
"It's like deconstructive criticism!"

Quote #14:
Kyle, Kimball and I were on the floor in sort of a dog pile. We were all laughing pretty hard. And ... it's inevitable. Suddenly, Kyle says in a perfectly calm voice:
"You drooled on my arm."
We get up, and sure enough ... I wiped it off for him!

Quote #15:
We had a LOT of prayers over the weekend. Family prayer morning and night, as well as prayers on the meals. I blessed both breakfast and dinner on the same day, as did Rachel. The last night, when Dad was trying to figure out who to call on, he said:
"We've picked on Rachel and Brooke EXCEEDINGLY."
In more ways than one!!!

Quote #16:
Kimball picked up some funny words from Australia. One of them is "rubbish." I was upstairs in the shower when she was talking about times on her mission when she felt like "rubbish." Rachel was confirming that by saying that there were times she'd felt like "garbage."
Kyle was trying to make them feel better by saying: "I don't think you are rubbish, or trash, or garbage ......"
Rachel and Kimball: "Aw, Thanks, Kyle!"
Kyle: "But I haven't said anything about Brooke yet!"

Quote #17:
Dad came to wake us up WAY too early in the morning.
Dad: "Rise and Shine!!"
Brooke (still half asleep): "That man needs a snooze button."
Kimball to Dad: "Do you have a snooze button? Cuz I'm supposed to push it!"

Quote #18:
As we're driving, Kimball's reading a marquee sign at a car dealership out loud. It says: "Hey! Did you know we sell used cars?"
But Kimball reads: "Hey! Did you know we used to sell cars?"
What do they sell now?

Quote #19:
We're at the doctor's office to get Kimball's TB results. Mom and Tyler are also getting their sicknesses checked. Dad's filling out paperwork.
Dad: "Alright, Tyler. Are you ready for all the questions? Are you male or female?"

Quote #20:
On the way home, I've become a little too attached to the bag of Doritos. I just couldn't stop eating them! We were talking about parental discipline tactics.
Kimball: "My parents didn't ground. They just took away priveleges." As she RIPS the Doritos bag out of my hands.

Quote #21:
Kimball was talking about pushing me around in a wheelchair because I'm a cripple. But she wanted a turn so she could practice for our wheelchair races.
Kimball: " Hey you! Sit on the floor!"