So, this album made me miss singing.  A lot.  Listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir often does, but this one pushed me over the edge quite a bit.  I love singing in men’s choirs and I love sounding like… like… that!  Like sooooo good.  With awesome accompaniment of a full orchestra, singing in a such a live, resonant space as the Tabernacle.

Sigh…

Someday…

Also, don’t miss the dead guy at 0:19 (by the plant)

1. to Melanie and Ben… Well, actually, this award goes to their son, Nolan, for the hilarious antics at graduation.
2. to Blabberbuns for coming back and blogging, and congrats for finishing her book, which I am excited to be the first to read… hint hint…
3. to OverheardInTheWard for “Little Ears, Big Mouths“.  You know, kids say the darndest things…
4. and finally, to Stuff White People Like for “Camping“.  I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Congratulations to all of you.  Keep up the good work!

The first blog doesn’t get the award because of profundity… it gets it for profanity… and the best kind of profanity… the innocent kind that comes out of unknowing, youthful lips… Add to that the homage to the ‘valley girl’ accent of the West, and it was irresistible for me to post this!  (Third bonus: it’s about my hometown, where there are SO many places I’d like to label with a large “Welcome to Hell” sign… in fact, they should just change out the freeway signs…)

Michael and Bonnie Foley: Is there a Hell in St George?

This second award goes out for a very unexpected heartwarming moment I had.  I love Christmas music with all my heart, and picturing this in my mind’s eye just made my day better…

Beej and Rae: Christmas in June

This goes to a friend from a long time ago, and her masterfully delightful design/personal blog.

Her post yesterday is one of the few things that I remember making me smile this week… and it was all because of this picture:

…which is basically my childhood dream!!!  And totally reminds me of sketches I used to draw during church of similarly ingenious contraptions to use all around the house.  (I’ve always dreamed of a fire pole from my room to the downstairs!)

That picture led me to this…

… which totally blew my mind!!!!  Yes, that’s looking down a flight of stairs.  They are the most unusable, inaccessible stairs in the world, but hey… they are amazing!!!

Thanks for making me laugh out loud Tai, and congratulations on the award!!!  Neither one of these staircases I would ever manage to walk down… and for completely different reasons!

Thankfully, limitation frees creativity, and her gift has been sitting on my desktop for months now, waiting for a moment to use it.  And now… it is time!

Her gift to me is this:

I debated exactly what I was to do with her gift.  Should I just post it on my blog?  Should I incorporate it into my theme?  Should I post it next to the American Idol performance I hate the least?

After careful consideration, I have decided to make this my new, original blog award I will be giving fellow bloggers whose blogs I read and enjoy.  I will award this prize for particular posts, rather than a blog in general.  In other words, rather than just giving the award to all the blogs I read (which are many), I will give it to a blogger when a particular post of theirs makes me laugh hysterically, or is particularly touching or well done.

Or I’ll just forget about this in a few days and forget to do it entirely, like a real man would.

So let’s start this off right…

The first “Simon Says” Award goes to….

DRUMROLL….

Stallion Cornell for his treatise: The Mormon Jesus and the Love of God