VAMOS!

We finally took the plunge! No, we took that plunge in August. This is a slightly less drastic plunge, but one that has broken our pocketbooks just the same. VAMOS A ARGENTINA. Dale!

We’ve been talking about it forever. I’ve been talking about it since I was down there, promising everyone as I said goodbye that I would be back. And ever since Tyler met my family, he’s been involved, since I do recall my mom asking him on the first day he met her if he would be willing to take me to Argentina (because she as heck wasn’t going). We had only been dating for two months at that point, but I suppose it’s never too early to plan! We originally planned to go in December over Christmas break, and go for just two weeks. It didn’t work out so well, however, as travel started adding up for med school interviews (because of course I had to go along to every singe one!) So when both of us realized that May could be our only window (right after Tyler graduates and possibly just before he starts again) we started planning and watching airfare. We watched and we wept as prices remained higher than your Uncle Ned’s hair transplant operation. And then they began to increase ever so slightly, day by day. That’s when we knew we needed to set a deadline and then buy on that day no matter what! D-Day was scheduled for Tuesday January 24. It was do or die. Unfortunately, however, that day passed and we had  still not bought the tickets! Last night, however, we decided to it was time to stop being chickens, close our eyes, and push the buy button on Expedia.com. I was holding my breath. I can even recall Tyler gripping my arm tightly. It was intense. We recovered quickly, however, from the almost deadly gash in our bank account and began to get excited for the trip. It was finally real! We. Were. Goinggggggggggg.

Not more than 15 minutes later Tyler got a phone call from his credit card’s security company saying they noticed he had made smaller purchases earlier that day, and that all of the sudden there was a large amount spent to LANS Airlines. That makes sense, because if I were of the criminal mind and stole someone’s credit card, I would definitely flee to South America and hide among the already hidden Nazis on the run (although they’re probably in wheelchairs at this point). It was funny. And we felt protected. Thank you VISA.

So…what will be doing for a month?? Allow me to give you a rough itinerary. Those who know me will know that by the time this trip is planned, we’ll know where we can stop to use the bathroom (and whether or not it’s clean). But for now, I’m trying to let myself live a relatively normal life before becoming completely consumed in the obsession.

On Saturday May 5, we’ll leave SLC and have stops in Los Angeles, Lima Peru, and Santiago Chile. It will take over 20 hours, but we actually chose the three stops, because it was the only way to afford Peru and Chile in this trip. I’m sure we’re in for a riveting cultural experience in the 1 hour we’re in each airport. I bet we can even find a McDonalds. We’ll be arriving on Sunday morning around 10:30am, at which point we’ll hunt down a cheap shuttle to take us into the city to a hostel.

Buenos Aires

The next day, Monday, we’ll sightsee and then plan on taking an overnight bus to northern Argentina (17 hours, thank you very much—one way) to Igauzu Falls, recently declared one of the Wonders of the World. The falls border Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We’ll stay the night and then take the overnight bus allllllll the way back to BsAs, probably hating life but happy to have saved a few hundred dollars by not flying.

Igauzu Falls

We plan on making a trip to Uruguay. We’ll either go just for the day to a small town called Colonia (the Ferry is only 2.5 hours from Buenos Aires) or if my friend from the mission moves to Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, we’ll take the bus further into the city and stay with her. TBA.

Colonia

 We’ll make sure we see everything we want to see in Buenos Aries (I only got to see ONE famous place in Buenos Aires during my time there since we weren’t allowed out of our areas…) and everyone we want to see in Pacheco (the small suburb I was in just outside of the city), we’ll take the bus to a province northwest of the province of Buenos Aires – Cordoba. My two Argentine companions live there. My last companion was Argentine and she was my favorite Latina. So it will be good to hear her sarcasm once again. The capital of Cordoba is also supposed to be pretty awesome. So we’ll check that out. 

Cordoba

After we’ve worn out our welcome in Cordoba, we’ll catch an (expensive—dang Argentine airlines) flight to Ushuaia, where we’ll spend the rest of our trip between it and Rio Grande, living our lives in bliss, oblivious to the world above us. We’ll be too busy looking at the penguins (and swimming with them, as Tyler plans to do. I quickly told him that may not be his brightest idea yet).

Ushuaia 

Rio Grande

 At the end of our time in Tierra del Fuego, we’ll take a flight back up to Buenos Aires, possibly down some last minute hot dogs, and then take the very long flight back to SLC. We’ll arrive home on Friday, June 1, absolutely exhausted, and one day short of having been gone for an entire month.

It’s very possible that we may just pick up and move to Oregon upon hitting U.S. soil, but that is yet to be determined. Until then, we’ll just dream of the tango, and futbol, and big chucks of ice floating around in the arctic waters. And meanwhile, we’ll be eating Ramen noodles every night until August, when we’ll get student loans to allow us to once again nourish our bodies, starved due to a lack of money. But that’s okay, because our souls will still be overflowing with the words of the great Madonna sung from the balcony to her people in Buenos Aires:  Don’t cry for [us] Argentina! And then we’ll die a painful death due to scurvy. But at least we’ll die happy.

Madonna as Evita

Tag Team Socializing

Back in the single days, my group socializing often revolved around running around in well-lit neighborhoods in spandex or eating cheesecake in graveyards with incense. Every now and then, we may have even hit up Chuck-e-Cheese and ran amuck like rabid six year olds (although they are probably more well-behaved than we were). I think I even recall once having a contest to see who had the squishiest buttocks. Ahhh...those were the days. I was a seasoned veteran. The insanity came easily by the time I reached 24. I might even venture to say that being social in a single world (among those who matched my maturity level, might I add) was...effortless. Well, kids. Those days are over. Welcome to Tag Team Socializing. Welcome to MARRIED PARTIES. In my world, you might as well as say welcome to the Mothership. Beam me up, Scotty.

Tyler and I are what some might classify, to a certain extent, as "A reservation for two, please." Living in Salt Lake away from our friends in Provo, we haven't really ventured far out of our little 600 sq. foot apartment when it comes to our circle of friends. (And if you met our neighbor, you might know why). I'm on a "Oh hey! How's work? Well that's great to hear! Have a good one! Oh thanks. I will too! See ya" level with several of the women in my ward, especially those in the Young Women presidency, but most of our interaction has been within the confines of either the church walls, or in a structured mutual activity -- where my role is pretty much outlined. No improv comedy necessary. Tyler and I have conveniently -- and not by grand design, I'm sure -- avoided every ward activity planned since we joined the ward in August. Most of the time we had a legitimate excuse. Like that one day my hair just wouldn't curl. Man that was a rough day. Devastating, even. But seriously, we hadn't been to a ward activity. We're faithful visiting and home teachers. We fulfill our callings. We do service when we can. It's just that when we have free time, we either like to spend it with the friends that we've already built comfortable relationships with (graveyards not necessarily required), with family who love us unconditionally despite our weird looks, or with each other -- in which case  we usually default to a movie or try to discover a cure to AIDS. So when this last Saturday rolled around, we quickly found ourselves in unfamiliar territory...

It was an Elder's Quorum activity. "Italian Night" they called it. Tyler signed up to bring an Italian dish (naturally) and I cooked it. Because lucky for me, the wives were invited too! I was beyond excited. After a meatball mishap and last minute tweaks to the dish (at 6:40pm when it started at 6:30) we headed out the door in the snow to search for our death -- I mean gathering. We arrived, hand in hand, to the host's house, and were immediately greeted by trumpets announcing our arrival. Ok, so there were two hippy guys from our ward playing the guitar. Close enough. Anyway, we both quickly scoped out the scene of our first married ward activity:  the living room was full of couples. Little babies scooted across the floor, drool lagging behind them. Older kids could be heard in the back bedroom killing each other on some video game. All the seats were taken and we had to awkwardly walk into the room and people shifted so that we could sit down. Luckily, one of the girls I was on "that" level with ended up sitting next to me, and we could talk for awhile. At first glance, despite the awkward entrance, it didn't seem to be too bad. Before digging into the meatballs, etc. we went around and introduced ourselves, couple by couple. It was precious. And then we proceeded to get food, couple by couple. Long gone were the Chuck-e-Cheese days, where a mad dash was made for the greasy pizza pie with grubby, token-germ hands. This was MUCH more civilized. I mean, come on. We're married for gosh sakes. After sitting down and eating, the conversation turned to married topics: how people's new jobs were going, what their kids were up to, how in the world an idiot like New Gingrich could win in South Carolina... OK, that's what Tyler and I really wanted to talk about, but you never know in whose company you stand. So we just talked about our jobs. Not our kids. Eventually, the party began dying down, and when Tyler was caught by the bishop mid-pie getting, I found myself sitting awkwardly on the couch -- at a married party, but by myself. I would have felt more comfortable in my spandex just then. Luckily, the host's wife came and sat down next to me, said she didn't know me, and asked my name. She had me at hello. We began a 30 minute conversation about missions and Machu Pichu and her adorable red-headed son, Sam. When Tyler escaped, he came and sat next to us and joined our conversation. It carried us well into the night (ok, maybe 8pm) and then it was that time, when all the married people grabbed their rug-burned scooting babies, bundled up, and headed to their individual abodes. We were no different. Although my rug-burned baby was much bigger. Some things never get old...

All and all, socializing as a married person was really not as intimidating as it may have first seemed. Tyler and I handled it decently well in my opinion (when he wasn't scooting around on the floor, that is). I could even see some advantages to tag team socializing. I could discreetly let him know when he was shout-talking to the person next to him, who was cringing at the seismic sound waves hitting him across the face, and he could slyly point his finger to the space between his front teeth, indicating to me that the piece of spinach I had stuck in there had run its course as mouth adornment.

We may  have not found a cure to AIDS (after all, Rome wasn't built in a day!) and we may have come across as novices (dang meatballs), but we overcame a great obstacle in our life that night. We graduated, if you will. Unfortunately, however, much like the majority of American high school students, graduation in no way reflects an increase in maturity. Tyler will still run around the neighborhood in his spandex. But maybe next time we do something insane, we'll have married friends to join in the fun. And their drooling baby can scoot along right behind.

So happy to have each other.

The Rest is Still Unwritten: A New Look

I thought it was about time that the blog receive an update. I am, after all, so much more mature and wise (no comments, please). Really, I realized that my life isn't so much about just me, anymore. Because of that, it's hard to keep a blog that reflects only the thoughts and odd behaviors of myself. So, with that said, I have decided to make it more a blog of US. Granted, my blog posts already, for the most part, reflect the fact that I have a husband. He is referenced many times throughout, especially at times of disaster (see previous blog post). But now the "look" of my blog reflects him, as well.

Really, the new blog look is a reflection of my new life trajectory -- it's still called "The Rest is Still Unwritten" because I still don't know where life is going to take me and us. In my previous picture, I sat on top of a glacier over looking the bay of Ushuaia at the bottom of the world, my whole life before me, so open and unknown as a young, naive 21 year old girl. The current picture is the sunset we saw at the Oregon coast the day after we were married, and I think it represents well the transition. Now our whole life is before us, open and unknown. A chapter in my life closed (you know--the young, single life where I could go clubbing every other night and couch surf to my heart's content...) and another has begun, and not necessarily one I imagined sitting on top of the end of the world years ago, but definitely one I am thankful for. If life had ended up how I imagined it this time last year, I would be in Boston right now, cold and poor, probably sick of studying and hoping for the end of the semester. I would be missing my family. I might even have a more cynical outlook on the world than I already do (thank you sociology). I'm sure I would be loving so much about it, but it truly pales in comparison to the reality of now. We can plan our lives all we want, but I've learned, and will continue to learn, that it never quite turns out according to our ideas. It turns out better. It's nice to know that Someone can see the big picture for me.  And no matter where we are in our lives -- maybe in a foreign land, maybe still trying to figure out what it is exactly that we want to do, maybe frustrated with dating or with life in general, I have no doubt whatsoever that everything will work itself out for the better. It may take some sleepless nights, some major doubts, some backs and forths, but in the end, we'll end up at happiness. Hope and faith will carry us through. For all of us, the light on the horizon represents a life still unwritten.

LOCKED OUT

It was a bitterly cold January afternoon, and the sun was on the brink of beginning its nightly decent into a frigid slumber. (Such a poetic beginning to a nightmare, don’t you think?) I had the thermostat at a good temperature, so that I was awake enough to keep up the urge to clean the apartment, but cozy enough to thank my lucky stars I was indoors – and warm. Being on a kick to reorganize and clean the tarnation out of my kitchen, I began ransacking the cupboards with the intention of putting everything back more neatly and throwing out the things that expired in 2009 (yes. 2009.) Wanting to be uber efficient, I decided I would throw in the first load of laundry down in the basement laundry room of our fourplex as I cleaned. So I got the clothes together, grabbed the key to the laundry room, and headed out, shutting the door behind me. CLICK. The door closed – and my heart sunk. At the very minute that it shut, I realized I had locked it. And everything inside of me wanted to scream bloody murder. I tried the door with the vain hope that maybe I really hadn’t locked it, and that my mind was playing a cruel trick on me. Think again. I ran around to the front of the apartment, thinking that maybe I forgot to lock the door after carrying the groceries in. No such luck. I was angry at myself for being so cautious! Why can’t I be careless every now and then and leave a door unlocked while I’m at home by myself?! At that moment I thought about how much it would cost to repair a broken window, compared to calling a locksmith. But wait…how would I even call a locksmith?? My phone was locked inside the house with all of my phone numbers. It was then that I realized the only two phone numbers I have memorized are my mom’s and my dad’s. And a lot of good they could do at that moment. I started getting cold as my mind raced through ideas of what I could do. I was in capris and a light sweatshirt. Tyler was at work in Provo and had just let me know 15 minutes earlier that he would probably be even an hour later than he normally is getting home. This whole thing just kept getting better and better. The window was my last chance at getting into the house, so I went back around to the fateful door and took the screen off the window next to it, (again wondering how much it costs to fix a broken window). I mustered up all the strength I had in my cold my hands to try to lift the window from its locked latch, all the while thinking I heard police sirens in the background since I was obviously trying to break and enter. Alas, the window did not budge, and I slumped down onto the deck, defeated by the very thing that had previously protected me. It was at this moment of despair that I realized I had no friends, either. I was trying to think about whose house I could go to to escape the frigid winter air, but I discovered, much to my dismay, that we had been living our lives as though we were on a deserted island! I knew no one in my neighborhood! I began to plan my funeral, hoping that someone would remember to close the casket since my nose would have frozen completely off. Suddenly, off in the distance, I saw a dove (well, it could have been one…it was white-ish, okay??), and it gave me a new surge. All of the sudden I had the will to live again! I knew I had to fight. I was a survivor (cue Beyonce). I quickly assessed what tools I had. Okay, I had a basket full of underware. Hmmm…if it was clean, I could wrap it around my head to keep me warm, but since it was dirty, I quickly vetoed the idea. I decided underware would not do me much good. But wait! I had my quarters for laundry. I had $20 worth, in fact. Now that, I thought, could be useful – very useful. I walked around to the front of the house, hoping to gain some sort of inspiration from the kinetic energy in my legs going to my brain. When I got to the street, I saw the house across from us, and remembered, much to my happy heart, that I kind of knew the couple there…they were in our ward, in fact! I had a little silent dance party at the possibility of getting rescued and set out for their front door. My only hesitation (and probably the reason I hadn’t immediately remembered them) was that the husband is VERY awkward. Like, so awkward that I’d rather be dying in the winter elements out in the street than have to sit in his house with him. So it was with apprehension that I opened their front gate. I knocked on his front door and he answered, ever so awkwardly. I explained to him my situation and asked if I could borrow his phone to call --- my mom? My dad? Those were the only two numbers I knew. So I settled on borrowing the phone to call a locksmith. We looked up local locksmiths on his computer connected to his giant big screen TV. They each wanted me to sell my soul to have them come and unlock it, so I said no thanks. So then I just sat there in this guy’s living room, basking in the awkwardness. His wife wasn’t home yet. It was painful. Suddenly I remembered that Tyler was on G-Chat! Brilliant! So I was able to get on G-Chat and tell him of my horrific predicament. He thought he could come home early, but it would still be in like an hour and a half. Of course, Awkward Neighbor was sitting there reading our entire conversation since it was plastered across his big screen. Tyler asked what I was going to do while I waited for him, so I couldn’t very well say I was going to go kill time in a grocery store or hang out in the basement of our fourplex. Our neighbor would then KNOW I was willing to do anything but be in his house with him, when he was being so nice. So I had to think of something quick, and then follow through with it because I wouldn’t have another way to contact Tyler once I left Awkward Neighbor’s house, and he needed to know where to eventually pick me up. Remembering that I had my workout clothes on I quickly responded that I would be in the park “going for my walk” and that he could pick me up there. (I had already ran three miles in the park two hours ago.) Nevertheless, I graciously thanked Awkward Neighbor for his help, wrote down Tyler’s phone number from our G-Chat conversation, and headed out the door with my bag of quarters, suddenly all-too-aware that I was homeless for the next two hours – and it was freezing outside. My first thought was to run for the whole two hours to keep my body temperature up and to prevent frostbite. I felt like Man Vs. Wild, only there weren’t any mountain buffalo to kill and cut open, so that I could stay warm inside of it. I started running to the park and then remembered I was being ridiculous – I’m so out of shape. And so I walked. By this time it was starting to get dark, and the lights in the park had turned on. And of course I saw many more Mexican gangbangers than I normally do. Just my luck. I put my hood up (probably looking like a gangbanger, myself) and kept walking, knowing that if I was to survive, I had to keep moving. (I learned that from the Titanic – I couldn’t let go.) As I walked, I passed a homeless man building a fire in the BBQ pit. Not able to feel my fingers at this point, I was oh so close to joining him, but then as night approached even more quickly, I thought twice about it and kept on going, thinking that if I was desperate enough, I would catch him on the second time around the loop. Every person I saw taunted me with his or her gloves and stocking caps – and ability to keep running to stay warm. They were probably burning up in their spandex, and here I was shivering, wishing I had eaten the full fat ranch instead of the fat free at lunch to give me just that much more insulation. I passed three pugs dressed in wool coats. They seemed to laugh at me with their little beady eyes. When I passed another homeless man with all of his belongings, I even thought, “Wow. He must be really warm in that long beard of his.” At this point I knew the cold was starting to get to my brain. I wasn’t sure how long it took for brain fluid to completely freeze over, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. I had to do something, and I had to do something fast. Mustering up all the energy I could, I made my way up the dark street to 7-11 and entered the warm store, the bell on the door clanging behind me. Not only was I cold, but I had to pee. And so I bolted to the bathroom (something I would almost NEVER do in a 7-11). I was also hoping that the bathroom had warm water, or at least a hand dryer! I seriously could not move my hands. Typical of trashy little streetcorner markets, the water in the bathroom was cold, and the air blower blew cold air. Perfect! I wanted to get a hot chocolate, but I didn’t want to have to fumble my frozen fingers through my plastic baggy full of quarters in front of the guy at the front counter, so I tried to count out how much I would need to buy one while in the bathroom, and I ended up with a handful of cold, wet quarters. I couldn’t give that to the Indian man, either, so I stayed in the bathroom another 10 minutes trying to dry my handful of quarters under the cold hand dryer. Could it get any worse at this point?? Luckily, I was able to get my hands just warm enough to turn the door handle and exit the bathroom. The hot chocolate helped defrost my frozen veins, and I made it to a pay phone in the parking lot. I had to call Tyler. Without my wool coat like those spoiled Pugs had, there was no way I was going to stay out in that park for another hour. I’ll admit that it took me a whole five minutes to get the quarters out of my baggy again and put them into the pay phone. But I did. And when I told Tyler I was calling form 7-11, he started busting up at the absurdity. Clearly, he did not realize I had just spent the last hour envying homeless mens’ beards. Anyway, I told him I was done at the park, and that he could find me at the laundry mat down the street, sitting, waiting. He told me not to get thrown into a dryer – but then again, that might not be so bad…

I ended up making it to the laundry mat alive, having had my hot chocolate to keep my body at a manageable temperature, and I settled into an old, grimy chair. Looking around, I realized it was just me and an old man – who may or may not have been homeless, as well. After a while of both of us watching the History Channel about the interworkings of the Zamboni (intriguing), he interrupted my intellectual hayday and asked, “Hey. Do you know where the nearest pay phone is?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “As a matter of fact, I do!” I replied. We became best friends. Luckily, Tyler got to the laundry mat not too much longer after that, or the possibly homeless man may have decided we were really good friends and asked me to join his journey. I just might have gone. 

After we left and pulled up to the apartment, Tyler asked, jokingly, “What would happen if I just locked my keys in my car right now?” Did I really need to respond to that? I felt like there was no need and I got out of the car, shivering all the way to the front door. And then I thought about those pugs. I hate them.

The moral of the story is: Don’t get locked out of your house, in 17 degree weather, with no cell phone, no numbers memorized, and in capris. Don’t live by super awkward people. Don’t think that walking in the park for two hours is ever anywhere near to being a good solution. Don’t ever hope that 7-11 bathrooms will have warm water. And for heaven’s sake, don’t ever  wash your underware – ever. 

Some of my favorite buildings in Salt Lake City are...

religious. Who would think that in Salt Lake City, home to the LDS Church headquarters, there would be so many awesome other religions and beautiful religious buildings! We just moved offices at work, so we are now downtown, baby. We are directly across from the Energy Solutions Arena (where the Utah Jazz play) and some of our offices have views of Temple Square. Since moving here, I have gotten to explore a little more of this part of the city, and have been discovering new little treasures. Just down the street from us is a Greek Orthodox Church, called the Holy Trinity Cathedral.

 It is beautiful! I mentioned this discovery to my co-worker who did her undergrad at University of Utah, and she said that she interacted quite a bit with the Greek community at school. Many of the Greek students were born and raised in Salt Lake City and their families formed a tight-knit circle here, preserving their traditions and customs. She said they also do a huge Greek festival every September with food and dance. AWESOME. I took World Religions at BYU from a professor who was raised Greek Orthodox and he instilled in me a great admiration for the religion. The term “religious envy” refers to liking or respecting something in another religion. I caught the envy fever. The Greek Orthodox pray after their meals, giving thanks for what they just ate. That has always stood out to me as something I find admirable in their religious practice.

Just down the street in the other direction is the Buddhist temple. I have driven by it for a week now and just finally noticed it yesterday! It sits on the corner in the shadow of concrete and pavement, with quiet dignity and poise. Its face is that of Japan, making it a stark contrast to the rundown buildings next door (and even weirder that it took me so long to notice it!) After doing some research, I discovered that it is a specific sect called Jodo Shinshu Honganji Ha, or Nishi Honganji. Their Mother Temple is located in Kyoto, Japan.

The legend of Siddartha, who later went on to become the Buddha, has always impressed me: Raised as a prince, his father attempted to shield him from the realities of life. As a youth, however, Siddartha occasionally ventured out of his palace to see how the people around him lived. It was in these excursions that he discovered an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and an ascetic striving for enlightenment.  All of these things began to trouble him, spawning questions about life. And so, leaving everything behind, Siddartha set out on his journey of enlightenment, evolving into the Buddha.

Along with these two nearby buildings, Salt Lake City also boasts two gorgeous cathedrals on South Temple, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, built in 1909 for the Catholic Church, 

and the St. Mark’s Cathedral, of the Episcopal Church.

We’ve been to a concert at the Episcopal Church and have walked around the outside of the Madeleine. Both are incredible.

In addition, there are two mosques, a synagogue, and a myriad of other religious represented. I have always been interested in other religious and love visiting their services. I hope to be able to visit many of these services and understand just a little bit better who these people are, what they believe, how they put those beliefs into practice. Amen and amen.

A Busy Beginning

I thought that with med school applications done, life would slow down a little bit, and we would have more time to pick daisies and stare up at the passing clouds. Well so far, that has been a LIE—a LIE I tell you. Since we came back from Oregon, we have been go, go, go every day of the week. The formatting of this next paragraph is to illustrate the feeling…

the week we got back i had a couple of friends who wanted to get together so we spent thursday night and friday entertaining/feeding them and I didn’t burn the taco soup thank you very much – gold star for me saturday was spent doing laundry and preparing for both of our lessons we had to teach on sunday sunday was spent teaching and preparing for my mutual activity since we are insane and apparently not of sound mind we made the goal on sunday to get up at 5:30am and go to the gym together since tyler got a “free” 7 day pass to gold’s gym i use the quotation marks because he basically signed up to be a slave to their phone calls and sales tactics but he swears he can handle them i just go run on the treadmill…from the gym on monday we went to school/work, and then back home where it was homework/prepare for mutual activity to complicate things even further I was sick and in the womanly way and wanted nothing more but to sleep tuesday we skipped the gym due to my issues allowing me to sleep an extra hour and then went to school/work i got home from work and immediately began getting things ready for dinner/my mutual activity tyler called and we chatted while he walked to his car from his last class, when he suddenly locked his keys in his car PERFECT so I did my mutual activity with the ever-crazy girls and tyler spent the evening trying to get his car unlocked thanks to his dad and brother he was able to do so but ended up getting home after me i finished making dinner when I got home we ate when he got home i looked at facebook, he did homework and at 11pm we were asleep again well, I was…I think he was still reading now it’s wednesday he’s at school and i have work ironically I have nothing to do at work tonight we’ll go see sherlock holmes with all of our extra free time i’ll try to squeeze the gym in between work and the movie tomorrow night we’ll go clean the slc temple and push the vacuum around and friday we’ll look forward to the weekend when we can once again reunite with our beloved and slightly worshiped new tv show we’ve been watching: the biggest loser

Welcome, 2012. Welcome.

A Christmas Recap

As we continue into the (finally) cold month of January, I need to make sure I quickly highlight our 12 day Christmas break before it's once again time to do so (and trust me, I'm not exaggerating...).

First of all, let me just do a quick shout out to the sun. You, my friend, pulled through BIG this year. Move over Santa. When we got into Oregon, the weather was BEAUTIFUL, and, get ready for this, SIXTY degrees. It was only the 22nd, and I already felt like a little 7 year old on Christmas morning. Tyler and I took my grandma and grandpa to the Portland temple. It was the first time we had been back since we got married at it four months ago, so it was awesome to finally get to do a session. The sun and the temple. Wam bam thank you mam. Since I could hear my grandma's stomach making very ungrandma-like noises during the session, I knew we had to go somewhere to feed the woman, so we headed to Salvador Molly's, a place Tyler saw on the Food Network. Patrons and employees travel the world and then bring back recipes to put on the restaraunt's menu. We had the hurricane fries with BBQ pork, cheddar cheese and sour cream to start. Tyler and Grandpa had the Kalua pork dish, I had the burrito, and Grandma had some curry/Mexican thing from.......maybe that random Mexican restaraunt Billy Bob, the dishwasher, went to in Delhi??? It was an experience, that's for sure, and did nothing to suppress my appetite for travel. Next stop? Delhi.

That evening, as the Western sun slowly set, Grandma, Tyler and I set out through the hills of West Portland, where Tyler and I just couldn't help but to continually take deep breaths. The air was so fresh and clear, thanks to the towering fir trees surrounding us. And Grandma ran a little with us. She. Is. The. Bomb.

At midnight we picked up the one and only OJ/Francis from the airport. She kissed us both on the heads.

Christmas Eve morning we made the I-5 trek down to to the Burg, guided by the still shining sun, not unlike the second star on the right and straight on til morning. My dad's house was in fine festive form and the view still never gets old...

Christmas Eve was full of the the typicals -- the yule log on the flat screen, the Utah-themed DI shirts, and the massage train.

It was a great night, and the Fran was once again complete with her feline friends...

Christmas Day was pure chaos--I mean joy!! My aunt and uncle came down from Corvallis and the kids shrieked and ran and pretended everyone was a Power Ranger from sun up to sun down. Christmas Day: The one day Bryce remembers he's a child. Santa came with Grandma and Grandpa and it was a happy Christmas filled with new recipes that did not, surprisingly, end up down the garbage disposal (as in previous years), ping pong tournaments (and by that I mean between Bryce and Tyler over and over and over again -- I think at this point my mom appointed Tyler to be a saint..."Saint TyTy"). Do you know that vacuum silence that's created by having the window down on a car while driving on the freeway at 75 MPH, and then quickly rolling it back up? That's how it sounded when the Young Family left. But no worries -- Bryce could still be heard in the background: "Tyler! Do you want to play Ping Pong? Tyler!"

The rest of the holiday was spent relaxing, climbing Mt. San Souci every other day, dancing in the pouring down rain, moving a few pieces of the wood to the wood pile, playing Farkle, eating burgers at the local tavern, and sitting around an open fire singing Kumbaya (seriously).

Oh, and Tyler grew a beard. It was red. And it was patchy. But it was, nevertheless, his first beard. My little baby is growing up! I think it's finally time to buy him a razor...

All in all, Oregon was green. It was NOT lean. But it was clean. We had sun, we went on runs, and got nothing done. We read our books, we had our own cooks, and we, thanks to Grandma, improved our looks. It was grand, there was ham, and we got to spend time with fam.

A special thanks to our sponsors who made this Christmas Break a happy one: The Earleys for being our number one rated Utah taxi service; Grandma for being our Portland shuttle, as well as the best darn Garden Burger Maker west of the Mississippi; Grandma/Grandpa for bringing down Santa's sleigh because he got caught up at the Woodburn Outlet Mall, I'm sure; Dad for taking so many pictures of the cats that it's almost entertainment in itself; Jen for the awesome food and decorations; Mom for rubbing my head until I fell unconscious; Kent for the Mission Impossible adventure; Mandy and Jason for letting us escape Hurricane Francis (the rain/windstorm we encountered upon taking OJ/Francis to the airport) and letting us sleep on your couch (see picture below);

OJ for braving the Oregonian Crazeeeeeees yet another year; Gage for, well, being Gage, and Bryce for reminding us that when we have children, we will have more than one so that they can play ping pong with EACH OTHER.

I love Christmas. I love Oregon. I love Garden Burgers. I love my family. And I'm a Mormon.

2012: A Year of Courage

Well hello there 2012. As I enter into the New Year, still with a hangover from our out-of-control New Year's Eve party with the cats (man, it was wild), I can't help but dwell on goals --  and that one time back in my mission during my last transfer when I was so frustrated that I defiantly proclaimed to my companion that when I got home, I was never setting another goal again -- EVER. Nevertheless, here I sit, a list of goals in hand. There is some unseen force that no matter how much I run from it, always grabs me and says, "Ding, ding: Resolution time!" As if a cake was baking in the oven and the timer went off, annoucing that it was ready to be devoured (oh but wait. you're on a diet and you cry yourself to sleep). Unforntatley, goal setting and I have always had a love/hate relationship. You see, my name is Jessica...and I'm a perfectionist -- a RECOVERING perfectionist, I might add. Every now and then I burn the food to allow myself to "let it go" (that's my exuse anyway. no comments please). I have this complusive need to set goals, but yet I know that it will not be fun trying to achieve them. There will be hope, there will be falls, there will be failure, and then I'll just be sitting on the couch waiting for 2013 to come around again so I can set the goals again. Because once you eat that cookie, you might as well eat the whole darn cake (i think I did that once, actually. again. no comments please.). Welcome to the life of a (recovering) perfectionist. Tonight I sit on my couch at 9pm and review my list of goals I made on Dec. 31, while coughing of hairballs. I go over each task, one by one, assessing my progress of today. Uh -- how long until 2013? 

Luckily however, on the brink of a major relapse, having not met even one of my new goals I set, President Monson stepped in (who knew he went to AA meetings!) He told me the following:

"Courage is required to make an initial thrust toward one’s coveted goal, but even greater courage is called for when one stumbles and must make a second effort to achieve.

Have the determination to make the effort, the single-mindedness to work toward a worthy goal, and the courage not only to face the challenges that inevitably come but also to make a second effort, should such be required. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, “I’ll try again tomorrow.” 

While I could just eat the cake, I choose to stop at the cookie. While I could agree with myself on the mission two and half years ago, I choose to strive for better. I choose to take on 2012 and all of my goals in all their glory. I choose to say my prayers at night, giving an account of my day, and then have the determination to say, "I'll try again tomorrow." I choose to dispel feelings of self-doubt and fear. I choose to look forward to the future with faith and hope. I choose courage. And I choose life. Here's to 2012. Mazel tov. 

On or very near the day I just said no to goal-setting.