ryan shupe visits our ward!!

so i don't know if all of you are familiar with the group ryan shupe and the rubberband, but ben and i really really like them. he's toured for a long time with peter brienholdt (another goodie among the mormon crowds...and non-mormon, why not?).

so i was wandering around church for like 10 minutes looking for my sweet and handsome husband while carting around a HEAVY (what in the heck did we put in there? a fax machine?) church bag and no-nap caleb who was refusing to walk and being followed by two teenagers who did not come from my womb. i felt that was important to point out for some reason. anyway i finally see ben in a cluster of men talking to a nice-looking bald man (because troy loves it when people say that) and i give ben the "i mean business" look, which consists of eyebrows raised and me mouthing the words "LET'S GO." ben swears he also saw lasers shooting out of my eyeballs and burning into his retina but he has no witnesses to attest to it, and no noticeable scars.

so ben introduces me to ryan shupe, of ryan shupe and the rubberband, minus the rubber band. and i say to him, "hey! we have your cd playing in our car right now! well, not right now because it's sunday but yesterday and tomorrow." WHAT??? anyway, ryan gives me the "that's really great", as he is turning quickly to leave. he has one hand raised in the air in a half-wave, half-defensive stance (i'm sure of it) in case i ask him to sign my stomach or church dress or something. and he's out the door. breezed out as quickly as he breezed in.

now some of you know me as somewhat of a celebrity buff. let's just say that i was watching "who wants to be a millionaire" celebrity version and i got all the way up to $25,000 before i had to even use a LIFELINE!!!! when we visited our friend amanda in LA, i was just a bit obsessed with seeing an A-list celebrity. no B-listers thank you very much. so maybe ryan shupe in the normal world would probably be considered a B or C-lister but STILL!! in the utah community, he's definitely an A-lister. he does have music videos that play on CMT and on the west coast, their song "dream big" was #1 on the billboards. so there you have it, we have spoken with a star who attended our ward in chapel hill. next week, brangelina, i know it. i will be watching paxamillion, zebbecariah and purple lawn mower snake (or whatever their names are) in nursery and we will be swapping recipes.

ben's two cents (a rare moment, this won't happen every blog so enjoy):
while i would never want to minimize the importance of meeting a celebrity at church, because all of you know my two favorite things include going to church and hob-nobbing with the stars, i would like to tell you of a greater opportunity this job has lent me today. today i was able to have the conversation with two teenage boys of why you're not supposed to scratch yourself in public. i was able to explore such topics as:

-boxers vs. briefs
-the support that a brief and/or boxer-brief may lend to a lad who just needs that extra pick-me-up
-where is an appropriate place to go when you need to "adjust yourself"
-last but not least, we got to explore the topic of how one acquires "jock itch" and the treatments of such an ailment

now i know after reading this, many of you will be banging down our doors for this job. but just to make it perfectly clear, it's taken so back off. you will have to go to your humdrum 9-5 jobs in the which you don't get to explore such deep and fulfilling topics as i do. sorry everyone. i hope you'll be able to get over the disappointment and that you'll still consider us friends. maybe the luckiest friends you'll ever have, but friends all the same. and that is my two cents. this is ben strader, signing off.