Florence and Pisa and Paris, Oh My!

Wow, stuff suddenly went double crazy here in Europe. I don't think it helps that I caught a cold on day one in Florence, so any time I'm on a plane, train, or hotel, I just zonk out immediately. I am awake, alive, and loving Paris, so I'll go ahead and post instead of zonking right now.

Florence was pretty cool. We continued our tradition there of eating a lot of pizza and gelato. We saw some amazing art. It turns out that it's not the Sistine chapel that tugs at my innards -- it's Michelangelo. The statue of David was just the same. What a talented man! I know Da Vinci is kind of seen as the leader of Renaissance art, but honestly... I think Michelangelo is the better artist. Anywho! We saw a few art museums and enjoyed the Raphaels and Botticellis, but we both thought that the modern art there was even better. I don't mean "modern" like we mean it in the states, where we put a dirty, old sneaker on display and title it "My Life." That's not art... "Modern" in Florence is 18th-19th century, so Impressionism and such. Such beautiful art! 

We also visited a couple of cathedrals there. I'll be honest, I'm getting a bit churched out here, but it was really cool to see where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried, plus Il Duomo is a must in Florence. It has the prettiest exterior of any church I've ever seen. 

Our flight to Paris was from the Pisa airport, so we took a train to Pisa and checked out the tower before catching our flight. I was slightly disgruntled to discover that the leaning tower or Pisa is -- you guessed it -- a church! Not that these churches aren't amazing, it's just that many of them look the same after a while. Haha, we took some very fun pictures there, though. 

I am in love with Paris. People warned me about this city, told me it was dirty, an made sure I lowered my expectations... But it's great! Muuuuch better than Rome  if you're worried about chaos, dirt, and rudeness. I've found the Parisians very pleasant and the city very lively. Everyone here has some kind of passion, and they all seem very happy. It's quite inspiring! 

We got to visit Musee d'Orsay, which is my favorite museum so far. We took a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which scared me to death. We also saw Notre Dame and Versailles. I believe we are finishing off with the Louvre and St. Chapel tomorrow. I love this city and am looking forward to Edinburgh and Dublin, but I'm also getting excited to go home. That's where I'd want to be at this point in the trip though -- ready for a couple more adventures, but reaching a good level of satisfaction. 

Two days later, I'm finally posting this. But skipping the pictures for the most part. We're about to board a plane from Paris to Edinbrgh, and there is no one here at the gate. This will be a great flight! Ps. I highly recommend the catacombs in Paris. It was super creepy, but wow, that was a lot of bones. I later found out that there are 6 million skeletons down there. That number really made me appreciate the damage of the holocaust... The bones just never seemed to end. 

On a happier note, I am thrilled to be going to English-speaking countries again. I love Paris, but I'm eager to end the foreign awkwardness!

Au revoir! Seriously, see y'all in three days.

Of Pizza, Gelato, and Old Stuff

On Tuesday afternoon, after checking out the East Side Gallery in Berlin, we flew to Rome. We've been fearing this stop almost to the point of dread, since Joe has been reading stories online about people being robbed blind by the gypsies, particularly in the area where our hotel is. We took every precaution we could think of: a money belt for Joe, a small purse shoved into the bra for me, and the phone and passports tucked inside my socks, leggings, pants, and boots, all at the same time. No, it is not cool enough in Rome to justify all those layers. Yes, I would like another glass of cold water. Thank you.

East side gallery, Berlin

 I am happy to say that we have not lost a thing in Rome -- not so much as a ticket stub left in a pocket has gone missing. Then again, we have been extras ordinarily cautious!

As a side note, if you are curious about why I said we didn't lose anything in Rome instead of "on this trip," it's because I left my razor in London. Now, a week later, my legs are very European and I have perfected my wookiee yell.

I am very much looking forward to finally doing laundry in Florence tomorrow night. It's our first -- and probably only -- laundry day. Let's face it: we stink and could've used the laundry night a couple days ago, but we just don't feel good about it in Rome. No reason to push our good luck!

Apart from being cautious and overly fearful, Rome has been an amazing experience. I'll be honest though: while I love exploring Ancient Rome and Renaissance Rome, I'm not the world's biggest fan of nowadays Rome... Except the gelato. Gelato makes everything better. When we landed in Rome, I was very surprised at the third world country feel of it. I actually, in real life, went to the US government health site to verify that the water was safe to drink before I had any. I also sang a rousing verse of "JAI HO!!!" when we arrived in our hotel room. You know, from Slumdog Millionaire? 

It's not the poverty that I don't like about Rome, it's the aggression of the impoverished. That's why it's unsafe to carry valuables in your pocket. People steal, people use kids as beggars. People shove purses, shawls, and maps in your face trying to get you to buy them. If you ignore these people, they yell at you like you stole their money... And to them, I'm sure that's how it feels. The absolute worst was Naples. I loved Pompeii and Vesuvius, but we had to go through Naples to get there, and it was kinda my low point. I finally broke down after walking through it for a while. I lost a tiny bit of control over my year ducts, and called the place "sh*taly." Please note that I was also very hangry. 30 minutes later when I was fed and safe in the train station, I simultaneously felt sorry for my swear and thought I was really funny for it.

I don't hate Rome, guys! I realize I just spent multiple paragraphs ranting about it, but it's true. It was actually worth it. Now that I've described the one negative, I'll give you all of the many reasons that it's been worth a visit: 

1) I already said this, but Pompeii and Vesuvius were incredible. We saw some smoke or steam coming out of the crater...! I may have gently soiled my last pair of underwear right then. That has yet to be determined though, since I am writing this from the train back from Naples to Rome and haven't been to a bathroom yet.

Temple in Pompeii with Vesuvius looking on

At the rim of Vesuvius!

2) Ancient Rome and the Colosseum. I walked on roads and through buildings that are over 2,000 years old. That's true of Pompeii too, but it's the Roman ruins and Colosseum where that really hits you... What amazing architects those people were.

 

The Colosseum at night

3) The Sistine Chapel. There are many pieces of art that you've seen and heard about all your life, but when you see them in real life, you think "Yep, there it is... It looks just like it did in my high school textbook..." The Sistine chapel is different. It honestly took my breath away. The Last Judgment piece of it was particularly moving. I'm not a Catholic, but I am a Christian... And even if you are neither, I challenge you to feel nothing in that room. Good luck with that.

4) Gelato, pizza, and gelato. Also, gelato.

 

Mmmm, pizza...

Those have been the highlights. We also visited St. Peter's basilica, which was really cool. I found the Pieta moving too... It's Michelangelo, man. He really pulls on my heart threads.

The Pieta

Well, until Florence... Ciao!

Rome from the top of the Vatican dome

Frau Bluher!

Hallo! I'm lying in a hotel room in Berlin writing this and eating a Ritter Sport. Why? Because the city sleeps between 6 PM and 10 AM (it's 6:45 PM here now). The stores and museums all close and the streets empty and become silent. I thought Germans were hardcore partiers -- where do they go?!

We've been here for two days now and absolutely love how quiet and relaxing the city is. It's a much-needed break after a week in London! Speaking of, here is how we spent the remainder of our time in London and our two days here:

On Thursday we explored St. Paul's Cathedral and climbed to the top of the dome. Unfortunately, the little old bird woman wasn't there to sell us food to feed the birds for toupence a bag. :( I might have pouted a little; I don't remember. We then ventured to Abbey Road and took a couple of awesome shots there, took a nap, and checked out the National Gallery for a few minutes before we saw Richard III starring -- wait for it -- Martin Freeman. It got mediocre reviews, but we thought it was a lot of fun and that they'd done a great job modernizing it. 

Crossing Abbey Road

On Friday we walked through Hyde Park, watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (would not recommend!), and explored the British Museum before nap time. After a nap, we headed to the West End to see Wicked, which was fantastic! I insisted on buying cupcakes afterwards. It was my birthday; I couldn't not eat cake!

Changing of the Guard

On Saturday we wandered until we found the Millennium Bridge and The Globe, which we didn't have time to cross or explore, but it they were still fun to see. We met a high school buddy of Joe's in Hyde Park and his girlfriend and chatted until it was time to head to the airport. Airporting and reaching our hotel in Berlin pretty much took up the rest of the day. It was so weird when we arrived -- it was 10:30 PM on Saturday night, and yet the streets were empty and quiet.  I've loved that here! But I have to say, Berlin wasn't so quiet for a while after we found out that Joe passed the Bar that night!

Joe and Greg

On Sunday we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and went through the holocaust memorial for the Jews murdered in Europe. It was really sad. I mean, you know it's sad, but then you hear individual stories and experiences and realize that every one of the victims had a story just as tragic... It puts the whole thing into perspective like nothing else ever has. We walked over to Checkpoint Charlie and read about the division of Berlin. Then we went to a DDR museum to see what life was like in East Berlin in the time of the wall. That was a ton of reading and site-seeing for one day, so we went back to the hotel after a delicious doner and crashed. Well, I crashed, anyway. Joe did some more tourist research. :)

Pieces of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie

Today, Monday, we woke up early because we had a 9:00 reservation to tour the Reichstag. The dome was so cool! The roof of the building is transparent so that everyone can see what the German government is up to from now on. The top of the dome had a great view of the whole city. We took a train to Sachsenhausen (a concentration camp in Berlin that held mostly criminals; most Jewish criminals were transferred to Auschwitz pretty quickly). What a sad tour! It's heart-breaking to go to the actual location and hear stories of what happened in certain areas. Sachsenhausen was by far not one of the deadliest concentration camps yet, all by itself, it was horribly deadly and tragic. On the way back from Sachsenhausen we stopped to see a small remaining section of the Berlin Wall, which was pretty cool. It's very tall but surprisingly thin considering its purpose!

Inside the Reichstag Dome

When it gets a little darker tonight, we're going to check out Brandenburg Gate all lit up. Tomorrow we are off to Rome. We're a bit worried about thieves and pickpockets there... So we wish us luck!

Guten abend!

Update: It's 9:13 PM and we just got back from Brandenburg Gate. The city is NUTS on Monday night. I don't know what everyone's doing tonight, but it is not FHE.

Stonehenge Tower Abbey Castle of Bath

First off, sorry about the boring pictures -- I am posting with my phone and have taken very few pictures on it. I'll post good ones from the camera later.

Joe and I have been in London for three days now and are thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Right at this moment we are on a coach (bus. Good old Brits!) back to London from a tour. We saw Windsor castle, the Roman baths, and Stonehenge today.

Needless to say we were a bit rushed doing all that in one day, but we did see some amazing things... Like the originals of tons of paintings of royalty they use in history books and the tombs of several past monarchs, including Henry VIII. 

I learned a lot of things about a lot of different people from different times, but the most important thing I learned today  is this: I need to buy Pringles more often. They are magical. I sincerely hope they sell cheese and onion Pringles in the states, 'cause I bought a small pack in Bath today and I'd really like a repeat on those.

Yesterday we tackled Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. Our guide at the Tower was a funny, dry, old tower guard who constantly threatened to lock the kids up in Beauxchamp. He informed us that most executions did not occur on London Tower, but "on Tower Hill, over there just beyond that ancient Tudor... Ice cream truck." I was also very amused by a little British girl there who looked about six years old and had never seen an English guard before. 

A tower guard led a group of them past, and she yelled "Mum, what are those?"

"What, the bayonets?"

"No, the men."

"Those are Beefeaters."

"No, not the Beefeaters, the other ones."

"Oh! Um..."

"They have big, tall, fllllooffy hats! I love big, tall, flooffy hats!"

Yeah, I had a good chuckle about that girl. We spent our first evening in London seeing The Mouse Trap at St. Martin's Theatre. It was great, but staying awake was quite a challenge after hardly sleeping in the last 30 hours.

Tomorrow we're checking out the British Museum and Buckingham Palace. We're hoping to get tickets to Comedy of Errors at The Globe for the evening, but we'll see what happens. If it's sold out (likely), we'll hit Les Mis instead. 

Until later, enjoy this picture of The Tower of London from Tower Bridge:

Cheers!

Overheard in the office

It's easy enough be negative about your job -- you spend 1/3 of your day there (nearly all of your waking hours!) and it's not typically something you enjoy doing; at least, not enough to do on your own without being paid. To alleviate the usual work frustrations, I've decided to relive some of my favorite moments from work recently. I work with some very fun people!

The conductor of one of my daily meetings, Dave, was unable to make it to work on time, so he called in on the conference room phone. He explained that his bees were angry that morning and that he'd needed to suit up and plug up the tops of his hives so that the bees could calm down before going back in. 
Charles: "You know, bees can sense electromagnetic disturbances in the atmosphere. This could be indicative of some kind of impending catastrophe."
Jaynee: "The apocalypse itself!"
Dave: "...I think it was spilled sugar water." 
Silly us!

Later in the same meeting...
Dave: "Aaah! A bee!"
A few minutes later...
Dave: "Hey, do you guys want to hear some bees?"
Scott: "I want to hear 'Aaah!' again."
Dave: "That was me going 'Aaah!' Okay, here are some bees" *buzzing through the speaker*
Scott: "Hey, ask them about Thor!"

Two stories need to be told for this quote: 1) A UX engineer, Geoff, had been helping a fellow writer improve the look of our documentation website. 2) We have a comment feature in our documentation that a customer has recently discovered. He keeps asking questions that we already answer in the documentation, so he's not bothering to read before asking.
Geoff: "Craig, you are going to have the most beautiful thing that no one will ever read!"
Me, laughing: "That was the funniest, most accurate thing I've heard all week."
Craig: "Well, at least we know <customer who keeps commenting> reads our documentation."
Me: "Yeah, well... wait. No, he doesn't."
Craig, laughing: "I think that actually wins funniest thing said all week."

On the van home one day...
John: "Jaynee, is this your hat?"
Jaynee: "Nope. I saw it in the back last week. Has no one claimed it?"
John: "I think it might be Winnie's. I wonder where she's been. Maybe she's too cold without her hat."
Neil: "Sorry, I can't come to work until Spring -- I lost m'hat!"

Marriage Lessons Learned from Funerals

On Thursday, October 10th, my husband and I took the day off work to drive to Iona, Idaho and attend the funeral of my last grandmother, Barbara Elliott ("Toady Gramma"), who died on Friday, October 4th. She'd suffered from severe Alzheimer's for years. She also suffered from hearing loss, which made her as amusing (though in a sad way) as her funny, lively personality made her when she was more "with it." For instance, here are some Grandma quotes from my Aunt Helen's funeral last December, which she hollered instead of whispering to my grandpa:

(Repeatedly to my sister-in-law, as if it were her doing) "This is a good party! These are beautiful flowers."

(As a large man walked into the viewing room) "Boy! He ate his mush!" Cue Grandpa's smacking her in the face with his program. ;)

(As an African American woman with long dreadlocks walked into the viewing room) "Johnny, look at the hair on that darky!" I still contend that old people are allowed to be racist because they don't know any better. So rather than cringe as you would with a middle-aged or younger person, you have to chuckle a bit-- except in this case, where, I assure you, the woman heard.

Anyway, some great things were said at her funeral. How she was incredibly service-oriented, adored her children and grandchildren, and how she had an unmatched sense of humor and love of throwing parties and dressing people up. In the end, there were far more laughs than tears at her funeral. I think that's a mark of a truly special, unique person.

I finally started crying when my dad talked about Grandpa's reaction to Grandma's death. He was a lost puppy, and understandably so! They had been married for 72 years, eight months, and had dated for three years. He was miserable and didn't know what to do with himself. Fortunately for him, however, and unfortunately for us, he only had to suffer his loss for 19 days. He, John Elliott, died on Wednesday, October 23rd. His funeral was yesterday.

The last conversation I had with Grandpa was at the luncheon after Grandma's funeral. As I said good-bye to him (I knew it was my actual good-bye for life, though I treated it more to him as a "see you later"), he said "Jaynee, I hear you got married recently. I was married for 72 years!" He is a quiet man, so I couldn't hear exactly what he said next, but I caught the word "happy." He either said "I was very happy," "I hope you are as happy," or gave me advice, such as "You have to work at it to be happy." All three messages were received and taken to heart at his funeral yesterday.

His entire life was caring for my grandma. He built her a house, and, apart from about 2 years, beginning a year into their marriage, when he fought in WWII, he never left her side nor the tiny town of Iona where both were raised and married. Grandpa was a quiet and simple man while my grandmother had what he called "go-itis," constantly needing to go out and do things. He took her wherever she needed, even in the last few years as her mind suffered but her body did not, and his body suffered but his mind did not. He fought to keep up with her and care for her.

These deaths were very sad for us -- Iona, Idaho was a big part of our childhood, as were our Grandma and Grandpa Elliott. Now all three are gone until we go. They left us with very important lessons about marriage, though. At my grandpa's funeral in particular, the emphasis was on their life together (they didn't really have lives outside of each other. 72 years!). In my dad's talk, the phrase, said by my uncle to my dad the day Grandpa died, was repeated: "It's a love story." Some lessons I learned from my grandparents are these:

It doesn't matter how different you and your spouse are, as long as you are both willing to serve each other and work hard at it.

Love is perfect when you love and serve constantly.

It's okay to laugh at yourself -- please do!

Pet names can go a long way (my grandpa called my grandma "Bobby," and she called him "Shawn." we never figured out the Shawn thing).

Do what you are passionate about. Support your spouse in pursuing his/her passions. 

BE HAPPY. 

On a final note, here's a song a coworker on my team sent to the rest of us. He said it was very touching, and he was not wrong: 

I listened to this all week, and it shows really well the feelings I have about my grandparents. :)

Moaning Myrtle

I am not going to comment (beyond this sentence) about how long it has been since I have posted, and I will not make excuses not will I promise future posts. Life has been busy, but here I have a moment to write about one of many, many goings-on that make life so great. To start, Joe and I just ended an incredible summer together. It began in May with the official end of his second year of law school and a move from the hobbit hole on State to a house 2 miles north of it. While we miss our first home as a married couple, we could not be happier with our new (and old -- this is the house I grew up in) house!

In July, Joe and I took a trip to the Humane Society of Utah and picked out a cat. We wound up with a darling 2-year-old tabby named Veria (My theory is that she belonged to a little, old lady who had to give her up when she moved to a retirement home... Because, well, 'Veria'? Really?). We brought her home and immediately started calling her Eunice (as in What's Up, Doc?), but that didn't last long. Eunice high-tailed it for the space behind the toilet when we let her out of the tote and could not easily be persuaded out for several days. We decided that she was haunting the toilet -- you know, sitting in the u-bend, thinking about death. So we called her [Moaning] Myrtle. Or, when she's in trouble, Myrtle Eunice Johnson.

I'm quite sure my taking her to the vet for the visit that I agreed to in the adoption contract did nothing to alleviate her nerves. For weeks, she probably believed that anytime I gave her a treat, I was tricking her into a ride in a non-air conditioned car to have a needle thrust in her leg and a thermometer shoved up her butt. Despite that unpleasant adventure, however, she's adjusting very well to her new home. We love playing with her, despite the fact that her new favorite game is attacking feet from under the bed and her most active hours are between 5 and 9 AM.

There you have it; we are officially parents now! Well, besides the fact that our new daughter cleans herself, has some degree of built-in portion control when eating, is litter trained, and can be left at home alone over a weekend, we are.

Summertime!

As of today, Joe and I have been married for 3 months... and so far so good. Our only complaint? Not having enough time to play! As usual, I'm going to narrate snippets of the last few weeks with pictures.
To celebrate the ends of finals, Joe and I packed up his car and drove off to Antelope Island to camp for the night. My awesome manager had me leave early to beat traffic -- good thing, too! We weren't sure we would be able to get a campsite, but we beat the rush.

Immediately after setting up camp and taking this picture, we had a great bike ride along the causeway, watched the sunset had tinfoil dinners, made a few s'mores... and were randomly attacked by 40 MPG gusts of wind. Out of nowhere our camp started blowing everywhere! We cleaned up dinner and Joe had me sit in the tent so it wouldn't blow over while he took the bikes off the car and put everything else away. The wind lasted all night and morning, and it was so crazy that the tent wall would fall almost flat on our faces while laying down. Amazingly enough, nothing, including the tent, was damaged!

On Saturday (the 19th), we got up early and hiked up Olympus. We talked about how we remember hikes in sections, and actually named each section of the hike:
1) The Eye of Satan's Butthole - the first 15 minutes or so of straight uphill that makes you immediately question your choice of a hike and ability to finish
2) The Airport - The longest (distance-wise) part of the hike that could not be any easier. In fact, it's kind of like riding an airport walkway.
3) The Rattlesnake Switchbacks - Joe and his siblings saw a rattlesnake in this area a couple years ago. The switchback thing is pretty self-explanatory.
4) Hell - The never-ending uphill stretch just before the saddle
5) The Scramble - The rock scramble to the top of the peak.

We finished this hike, crashed for a couple hours, and headed back to the Festival of Living Traditions for round 2 of pigging out. I feel like this evening's pig-outage was well-earned.

This week has been a blast, so I'll post a few highlights just from the last few days as well:

On Wednesday, we hiked Donut Falls. That's not particularly difficult or adventurous, but the fact that it was so spontaneous (we were planning on going for a bike ride, but my bike broke last Saturday and we weren't sure how to fix it) and that we both got soaked made it just that much more awesome.

On the way down, I made Joe listen to this book on tape I'd just finished and loved. I finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower this week, and I'm adding it to my list of favorite books. It takes some great writing to keep a book interesting while nothing is happening! I'm not selling the thing very well, am I?

Yesterday, we hiked to Timpanogos Cave with a group of friends. We had a lot of fun, since those of us who had seen it before hadn't seen it in years. The time they give you to hike the trail is ridiculous, so we stopped and took lots of great pictures. This one is just one of my favorites.

After the hike, we stopped at Taco Bell before coming back home. That sounds like a random, boring detail, but I actually think it has everything to do with this story... Everyone met at our place, so they came inside for a bit. Jake informed us that he needed to "wreck our toilet." We very generously gave him permission, but then as he was in that process, a line formed. In the end, the combined efforts of 4 men made me think of "wrecking the toilet" as less of an exaggeration. Gross and hilarious. On my sharing this story: you're welcome.

To conclude this week's hardcore Saturday, we met up again in the evening and played Silly Hat Poker -- which appears to have turned into a weekly tradition and even involves a trophy. Logan won this week. The loser could either be me or Logan. Logan was the first one out of chips, since he went all in on one hand and lost everything. Jake gave him one to keep playing, and somehow Logan ended with the most chips by the end of the last hand. Anyway, the deal was that the loser takes the winner on a $5 shopping spree to All-a-Dollar. I guess I owe him the chance to load up on single-use spatulas and stale candy!

Some other highlights that I don't have pictures of:
+ Bowling
+ Raging Waters
+ Nick's hockey game
+ Numerous bike rides (including biking down Big Cottonwood Canyon. Or, for me, just half of it)
+ Random hikes up the S-curve and Bells Canyon
+ Horseshoes
+ Ultimate frisbee with a few high school kids we met and challenged at a park. We got spanked!
+ A couple trips to Airborne for hours of jumping fun!

Ketchup Time!

Remember that time I didn't blog for 6 months? Well, I decided it's time to do a little catching up. The problem is that I don't remember exactly what happened the first 3-4 months, except for a lot of snowboarding and even more wedding planning.... so we'll just leave it at that and start with March 10th of this year. :)
I never actually believed the day would come (especially that last week), but come it did, and everything turned out perfectly. You know your wedding day is going to rock when your also-restless fiance texts you at 6 AM to ask if he can come over and eat your cereal. Yes, please! The sealing was incredible. The sealer did a fantastic job bringing the Spirit there and not leaving an eye dry. What an amazing experience that was. Since that was later in the day, we went straight to our dinner/dance after pictures. Small though it was, it was pretty hopping, not gonna lie. The best part was doing the Thriller dance with family and friends -- classic!

So what have I been up to since then? Quite a bit, actually. I'm not feeling a whole lot like typing, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. First, obviously, was the honeymoon in Mexico.


We didn't snorkel a whole lot (just had a lot of fun taking pictures with them), except for that incident with the sharks and stingrays... but I'll let your imagination take over from here. Trust me though, your imagination won't do the day justice.






We spent a ton of time here at the beach in Playa del Carmen. I read The Princess Bride and Joe did Sudoku puzzles -- those moments we weren't swimming, I mean.

There was plenty to do away from the beach in Mexico. On our 3rd day there, we took a 4-hour bus ride to Yukatan to see Chichen Itza, and believe me, it was worth the commute. We also visited the ruins of Tulum one day.



We spent that Saturday (day 5) swimming with the dolphins. Our dolphins were named Yoconda (sp?) and Estrella. They were both mothers with 1-year-old babies, which, though they're cute, we decided we'd rather not sneak home with us when we kidnapped the mothers. They're useless right now; they don't do any tricks!


We did quite a bit more and ate a lot of indescribably delicious food, but I'll leave this where it is and move on to the things we've been doing since our return to reality...

We've played a lot with friends. On this particular Sunday evening, we invited our friend Jake over for dinner, after which we all decided to put various bridal shower/bachelor party gifts on our heads. And yes, believe it or not, I actually meant to make that face.
Another night, we went to dinner with our friends Logan and Elise. Wait, I worded that wrong. They kidnapped us and took us downtown to The Bayou, so we showed them a favorite location of ours -- what we call Thinking Hill. The only downside to this trip? There was a couple up there, so we felt a tiny bit unwelcome and eager to leave.





Joe and I went to the Salt Lake colors festival. It's much smaller than the Spanish Fork one, which is why it was so much better!


Here we are, showing dominance over our bikes after the Salt Lake bike tour, where we rode 26.1 miles for a Creamie and chocolate milk. Worth it? Well, yeah... the Creamies were peach-flavored!
So much adventure, and hiking season hasn't even begun... life is great!

Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

I know everyone has been overloaded with gratitude posts on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc., this week, but if you're apt to complain about it, let me point something out to you: long, gushing, Oscar-style "I'd like to thank my..." posts are a heckuva lot better than the ranting/venting/life-is-terrible posts that you're overloaded with the other 364 days of the year. Eat that for breakfast!

Speaking of breakfast, I'm starting my gratitude post there. There are many things that I'm thankful for this week. Right now, I'm grateful for the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I had for breakfast - that it sat so invitingly in the fridge, that I could eat and enjoy the holy shiz out of that dessert. I mean breakfast.

I'm so thankful for my amazing fiance who understands and never criticizes me, even when what I do is irrational or selfish; in fact, selfishness is almost encouraged? Honestly, the man's perfect! I'm thankful for the support we've received from family and friends. Actually, in a way I'm also grateful to any who questioned us along the way - for causing me to reconfirm that I am making the right decision. I have zero doubts that I am!

I'm grateful for my supportive, understanding family that takes care of me, is genuinely concerned, and is so willing to offer and deliver help at the drop of a hat. It's inexpressible the gratitude I feel for Buster and Emelie for providing me with a cheap (and free for most of my stay, until I put up a big enough fight to pay rent) place to live, and for the love and support that they give. Even during those few times when things seemed hard, I could never complain; I had them and a place I felt totally at home (and still do!).

I'm grateful for the Gospel in my life, for a loving God who is willing to give me blessings I know I do not deserve. I'm grateful for covenants and promises, the opportunity to give (although very little) back to my Heavenly Father and Savior. I'm sure this gratitude will only grow when I go through the Temple soon.

I'm grateful for my wonderful friends (some of which are also family!) for supporting me and putting up with my flakiness and endless faults. Maegs, Nell, Rach, Weenie (in no particular order besides alphabetical) - thank you for being so kind and caring. You are seriously the best friends I could ever ask for, and if I were to have bridesmaids, you would definitely be they! You're welcome, by the way, for not making you stand in line and try on and wear borderline skanky dresses that you will never take off the hanger again. ;) Hehe, just kidding. Sorta.

I'm grateful for my health, my continued safety (especially driving 70+ miles per day! That's a REAL blessing), and for the health, safety, and happiness of my family and friends.

There are so many other things I'm grateful for, but those are the ones that I absolutely had to get out for fear of bursting this weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. If it doesn't have Siamese twins in a jar, it's not a fair!

Just a quick update before bed. For those waiting for the news, I am officially engaged now. We've had a date picked out for quite a while, but as of 3 weeks ago, it's official. here's my sapphire ring.

How'd he ask? Well, funny story. We drove out to Antelope Island with our bikes, parked at the end of the causeway, and went for a ride. The causeway is a really fun, really easy ride. The only catch is all the brine flies. I was not wearing an immodest shirt by any means - just a Ninja Turtle t-shirt - but still the flies flew down the neck and flew around in there until I pulled a Tarzan, pounded my chest, and killed them all. Blech!

Anyway, we rode the 7 miles to the entrance and the 7 miles back to the van. After I killed the new batch of flies, we drove to a rocky area where we took pictures with a group we camped with a few weeks before - the view of the sunset there is always breathtaking.

We climbed the rocks so we were far away from the other people and watched the sunset. Joe bent down to pretend to tie his shoe and came up with the ring. While I wasn't totally surprised (I tried it on 2 days before), it was still perfect for us. There we were, covered in sweat and dead bugs, watching the sunset on Antelope Island.

I said yes, and he pulled a dead brine fly out of my hair (no joke!). It was pretty great. :) We went to Chef Tom's and got some cheap but fantastic Italian - which is also us! What's wrong with cheap if it's delicious, right? Best alfredo ever! We stopped at FYE, looked for the absolute worst movie we could find, and watched Frogs at his house.

That's the story! I've just been busy shopping for a dress and reserving reception centers and whatnot since then. I'm still in favor of elopement, but, as Joe so rightly put it, "we need stuff." Hehe.

Other things going on? I joined Joe's family on a trip to Cedar City a week later to see the final weekend of the Shakespearean Festival. I'd never been before, and I loved it. We saw Winter's Tale on Friday night, then Dial M for Murder on Saturday (obviously not a Shakespeare, but I do love me a good Hitchcock script.). We had tons of fun!

This picture is from a hike we took in Kolob Canyon (which is technically a part of Zion National Park, but it's accessed somewhere funky and very few people know about it). Pretty, right?

One last picture for the road. This is my favorite engagement picture, taken 2 weeks before actually being engaged so's not to miss those leaves:

Yeah, I like Thai. Do you like shirt?

I've been collecting quite the conglomeration of good times, intending to blog about each one individually. In the interest of moving on with life and saving time, I'm just posting a few highlights.

August 19th and 20th - Grand Teton Relay! I was in van 2 with Jess, Josh, Kim, a high school friend of Jess's, and a younger brother of Josh's coworker, who DOMINATED the 10-mile leg. This is a picture of Josh ending our van's first leg and Jess picking up the second. This race worked exactly like a Ragnar. Not sure how weekend relay races work? Here's an enlightening video:



This race starts in Ashton, ID, and ends near Yellowstone, WY, taking the team all over the Grand Tetons.

I ran the 12th leg, which means I finished the race (boo-yah, Grandma!). I was also fortunate enough, at the end of our second set of legs, to hog the sunrise run. I was running up a mountain road, meaning I was cursing mountains, elevation, and the world in general. The sun rising over the peaks as I rounded the east side of the mountain was the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life. Too bad you'll have to take my word for it, because I wasn't running with my camera.

September 5th - Say one Labor Day you decide to go on your second favorite hike in the world, you take a wrong turn, and wind up facing the choice of either scrambling the jagged mountain edge or backtracking a couple of hours. What do you do? 1) You take the knife's edge. 2) You turn your second favorite hike in the world into your first favorite hike in the world. Seriously. My favorite part about the hike (taking the Red Pine trail and then climbing the Pfeifferhorn) in the first place was the rock scramble near the end. The fact that we extended the scramble and skipped the steepest part of the hike made it absolutely perfect. Sure, we were nervous about moving forward when we first realized we were on the wrong side of that mountain, but just look at Joe and Reba in this picture. So. Much. FUN! As for the picture on the left, there's our destination as seen from about halfway through our invented rock trail.

Those are the two big things. As far as hikes go, here are a couple of honorable mentions:

Twin Lakes (Up by Brighton and Silver Lake) - not a particularly difficult hike - it's steep, but it's also very short - but it's absolutely gorgeous.

Remember that snow storm in the mountains last weekend? Well, Joe and I took a little drive up Little Cottonwood canyon to scope it out. This is the bridge at the start of the Red and White Pine trails.

Feelin' Campy - Like Karate Kid!

Earlier this month (the 4th through 7th to be precise), some of my family and I ventured on our I-can't-count-that-highth annual camping/fishing trip to Bridger Lake - the mystic waters of abundant planters! I defy you to spend an hour there and not catch your weight in puny, white rainbow trout. What made this trip special (among other things which I shall detail later), was that we invited Joe along. It was great spending time with him and getting him more acquainted with my wonderfully insane family.

As per tradition, the moment we arrived, we set up camp at a speed only possible for super humans, and hauled our fishing gear to the lake. This year, it started raining about an hour after we started fishing. This picture is of the lake during our first afternoon at Bridger Lake. We were soaked through pretty dang fast, so we pretty much froze the rest of the night (I was too stupid to change my socks before bed and wound up with really cold feet all night).

The second day was a blast, because after a morning of throwing our lines in Bridger and a hike (only Joe and I did that), Dad and Larie put their four-wheelers to good use, finding a lake with decent-sized trout that were actually native to the lake. All of us took turns riding the four-wheelers to that lake and fished there the second half of the day with some pretty good results. Most of our fishing time was spent there the rest of the trip. My favorite thing about Marsh Lake? Buster found this salamander in the weeds one morning. I'll not lie, once he showed me what he caught, I stole it and played with it for a ridiculous while before I even considered giving it back. It had so much energy! Sally was old and weak her last few years, so having to work to keep this salamander in my hands brought back some much older memories!

Some other fun moments of note:

Papa Gary teaching Chloe and Gaige to whittle - as he did for all of us when we were younger. Chloe asked me for whittling tools for her birthday next year.






Joe being silly whilst fishing at Marsh Lake.

Wait for Me While I Play Catch-up, Play Catch-up

Well, this is embarrassing. I thought I'd been slacking off for a couple weeks, but it turns out it's been almost 2 months! Sadly, as I imported pictures from my camera earlier this evening, I discovered that my camera is more neglected than my blog. There's a 4-month gap between my most recent photos and my second most recent. I've been using my iPhone for pictures, but still! In the spirit of making up for my disappearance, here are a few updates, brought to you by some of the images I just loaded:

About a month ago, Joe and I hiked Broad's Fork again (we've done it three times now: once snowshoeing as friends - ha! And twice this summer). As I led the way back down the trail, I heard a rattle. And proceeded to bolt to the other side of the trail at speeds I never knew were possible, all the while asking, "What the heck IS that?!" I knew was it was (derp!). It's really hard to see the snake in this picture, but sadly, it's the best shot I have. It's towards the lower right corner. Actually, contrary to what it looks like in the picture, rattlesnakes are pretty big. I thought they'd be the size of a garter snake or something, but he was muchly much more bigger.

A couple weeks later (I guess this would be 2 weeks ago now), we hiked Grandeur Peak. It's definitely a new favorite hike of mine. The only thing there to slow us down? A rattlesnake. I kid you not, haha. I'd never seen one while hiking before, and now I've seen two within a couple weeks! This one was pretty boring compared to the first one; he just curled up under a bush by the trail and refused to let anyone pass without throwing a fit.

The filthy legs you see here are the aftermath of that hike.


This picture is about 5 months too late, but here I am, dominating Moab on President's Day. That's right - my Moab trip is the most recent thing on my camera besides Grandeur Peak and Broad's Fork. Can you say it with me? On the count of three. One, two, three: FAIL! Fail of epic proportions! To add to the glory of this huge exhibition of shameless slacking on my part, I'm going to go ahead and conclude my update here. Honestly, I'm keeping busy and enjoying the living crap out of my summer (not to mention life!), and yet I'm having issues thinking of things to blog about. So, on that note...

Until next time, suckas!

It's a Beautiful Day, Don't Let It Get Away!

Well hi! It's 8:45 AM on a Sunday. What should I be doing? Planning the lesson I didn't bother planning all week. Naturally, that means it's time to update my blog. Mono-wise, I'm doing fantastic these days. My only complaint is that I have no idea long how long I'm contagious - anything I've looked up has a very wide date range (even wider than how long the symptoms last. I know now for me that they last 3-4 weeks; however, this information has no value. You can only get mono once.). I did somehow pass it on to one person - unless she happens to know someone else with it. Joe's sister. I feel horrible about it, but I am extremely puzzled as to how she got it. I haven't been anywhere near her in ages, and anytime I was at their house I kept my distance from everyone but Joe and didn't leave anything of mine around. Go figure!

I started at work 2 weeks ago. I think it was too soon based on how hard the first week was, but after watching Jurassic park a 3rd time and checking out a second Goosebumps book from the library, it was time. I actually did great this week, and I'm feeling totally normal. In fact, yesterday I went on a little hike up Big Cottonwood and went on a tandem ride along Wasatch Blvd until it ended up North. As you can see from my hiking picture, it was a gorgeous day.

The only thing dragging me down and causing fatigue? All the fun I'm having! 2 weeks ago it was the U2 concert. The picture here is of their stage - it was amazing! You'd really have to see it in motion and in the dark, but just trust me on that. The concert was a blast and totally worth my dragging myself to survive the rest of the week.

This past Tuesday, I went to Les Miserables at Capitol Theater. I'd never seen the play in any form and really loved it - enough that I wound up starting the audiobook on the way to work the next day.

I think the only other thing to report is that yesterday I sent in my forms for my concealed weapons permit. Awesome, right? I took the 5-hour class on Friday night after work, which was offered for free from a coworker. Since he and his wife took care of everything, all I had to do was address an envelope and send it off. That was actually more difficult than it sounds. How safe would you feel mailing off your name, address, race, height, weight, hair color, eye color, social, credit card information, finger prints, a copy of your driver's license, signature, and a recent photo all in one envelope? Someone steals that, they steal you! Anyway, the application can take a couple months to process, but in the meantime, I'm choosing out my gun. I had my heart set on a Glock, probably a 9mm, but then the instructor pulled out a 1911. I fell in love with it. When I looked it up on Cabela's website, I decided on the Springfield brand, since Glock doesn't make a 1911 and that was my second choice anyway. When I saw all the pictures, I decided on this silver guy here. Isn't he pretty? 9mm Glock, .45 Springfield... same diff, right? ;)

I'm also posting a picture of a second gun I really liked. It's also a .45 Springfield 1911, but it's more of a WWII design. As you can tell from the fact I like the 1911 design, I love older-looking guns, so this one is still definitely a good possibility. Anyone want to choose? The silver one was exactly what I had in mind after the class, but this one has a charm in its rustic look, yeah? I believe it is also $50-60 cheaper, and let's face it, at this point I should definitely be saving money any way I can.

In conclusion, no one ever, ever tell me not to hike alone again. Why? 'cause I'm packin' HEAT!

I Once Thought I Had Mono for an Entire Year. It Turned Out I Was Just Really Bored

Naturally being constantly very fatigued leads to some pretty impressive mood swings. Nothing as bad as it sounds, just the normal ups and downs you get when you're super tired. One minute you're laughing so hard you're crying, next minute you're frustrated about you don't even know what. That said, I'm making a list of positive things about mono to make the mood UP:

1) Creamies and chocolate pudding
2) Down 5 pounds in a week? Not my favorite method, but I have no complaints about the result
3) As mentioned above, those moments when you do laugh so hard you cry
4) Sleeping 9 hours without meds
5) Visits from family, daily texts from Mama, and her gift of endless popsicles, juice magazines, and flowers
6) Getting to read, watch movies, or play video games all day and not being considered lazy
7) 1-2 weeks of not driving through the awful Utah County I-15 construction
8) No one cares or blames me if I wear sweats or glasses or don't bother doing my hair
9) I have something to blame when I say something stupid

Two of Us Riding Nowhere, Spending Someone's Hard-Earned Pay...

Saturday was easily one of my top 5 days ever. Why is that, you ask? Well, sit back and keep a tight hold on your pantaloons, because I am about to answer your question! One of the best days ever starts like this: waking up at 4 AM. Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? So after 3 hours of sleep, I dressed, packed up some stuff for a 25-mile bike ride and drove out to South Jordan to meet my fellow biker cronies. We left around 5:20 (much later than we wanted), but wound up at the U's institute just in time.

Joe and I bailed on the others and rushed to the starting line literally less than a minute before it started, but as we crossed the street near some Trax tracks (haha, tracks-tracks?), the tandem's front tire caught the track and we fell over. I almost took some lady down with me, it was very amusing. Anywho, once we shook off the scrapes and bruises, we made it to the line and started the ride. The most entertaining part was that it was raining - everyone had this wet streak up their backs from the back tire that looked like babies when they... well, ya know.

Anyway, not long after passing the 8 mile mark, I heard a pop. Not feeling anything, I asked, "Was that us?" It was. So we pulled over and started taking the tire off. I found the tear in the tube, and it was pretty impressive. Joe called his dad. We had a repair kit on the tandem, but there was no way to patch that thing up. So we told his siblings to ride on, and we just waited for Kevin. We finally called him after a while to find out that he thought he was behind us when he was actually ahead, so he'd been riding in the wrong direction. In the meantime though, we fell back on our usual form of entertainment while we wait for things. The goat ladder video.

Eventually, Joe's dad got there, we pumped up a new tube, fiddled with the off-center brake for a bit, then took the bike out into the road. It was easy, since the rest of the bikers were long gone. The second I sat down, I heard an all too familiar popping sound. I stood up, felt the back tire and yelled out, "THAT just happened!" At that point it crossed the funny mark and became just downright hilarious. So we felt ALL over the rim and tire for anything tearing the tubes and found nothing. We took the risk and pumped up a third tube, but this time it was inside the tire and on the rim before we pumped. As it inflated, the tube pushed out through a rip in the tire. Yep, that had to be causing it. I was so glad to find out that I hadn't gained 1,000 pounds since I woke up!

Joe's dad rode back to the van and we waited for him to come back. In the meantime, we sat on the curb and watched the marathon runners. One of them sneezed, I yelled "bless you!" and some lady threw us a shirt and told us to throw it away (Uh, yuck?). Some guy was wearing Kiss make-up and an 80's rocker wig, another guy dressed like a flower, one was in a shirt and tie... it was good fun, haha. Oh, and there were many mean jokes about Ethiopians as the ones who were dominating the race ran by - mostly inspired by Billy Crystal's joke in When Harry Met Sally. Anyway, after maybe an hour, Kevin came back and took the above picture for us.

Since the bike tour failed, there was really only one obvious solution: spontaneous zoo trip. But first we stopped at a grocery store and bought bagels, cream cheese, and strawberry milk. We ate that in the zoo parking lot, then headed in for the first time in a very long time for both of us. We got mooned by a gorilla! I'd never seen an ocelot before, so I cooed over that for a while, and kept squealing "KITTY!" like Boo in Monster's Inc. Joe's response? A playfully condescending "Okay, let's go get a drink out of the giant lion head." Hehe. Love to!

Anyway, the zoo's the zoo, and the zoo is awesome. After all that, obviously it was nap and shower time, so I drove home and did just that. After an hour and a half (what's wrong with me?), I got dressed and we went for a real bike ride on the Jordan River parkway, sans killer tandem. After a long, relaxing ride and some dinner at The Pie that felt like swallowing a delicious brick, we went to Nick and Weenie's to play for a bit. Weenie, Nick, Joe, Jake and I walked over to Macey's, grabbed some movie food and, for some reason, more cereal than any human could consume in a lifetime, and headed back to watch 1408. That about concludes the day. Partying it up with friends and eating the Western Family version of Samoas, which I nicknamed Tongas.

Yep. That answer your question?