Scary Ride!

My drive to the bus stop this morning was pretty eventful!  First, when I was listening to the news, I found out that the Provo Tabernacle was burned down early this morning!  This building is over 120 years old, and a big part of the history of Provo, UT.  I was saddened that this happened.  I hope that what's left of the building can be preserved and restored.

Then, when I was almost to the bus stop, I almost got into an accident.  I was going straight through an intersection and as I entered the intersection I noticed that the cars in front of me were slowing down.  I put on my breaks, but then I realized that they were REALLY slowing down.  I slammed on my breaks to avoid hitting them, and right then I found out why they were going slow: there was a patch of black ice on the road.  When I hit the ice, I fish-tailed and my front end went into the lane next to me.  I thought that one of two things were going to happen; 1) I would slide into the cars in front of me that had slowed down, or 2) I would get hit by a car beside me or behind me.

But I was really lucky!  The cars in front of me sped back up after they got past the ice, so I didn't hit them.  There was no one behind me.  And the car in the lane next to me saw what was going on and avoided me.  Also, I got my car under control pretty quickly.  But it was still scary.  Instead of ending up perfectly fine like this:

I could have ended up like this:

Shout out to Dockers

A quick shout out to Dockers. I bought a pair of shoes a couple of months ago from one of those ultra-cheap discount retailers, let's call it "Ross." About a month after I bought them, (and wore them about ten times) they got a big tear in one of the seams. I took them back to "Ross" and they told me tough luck, no receipt.

So then I called Dockers, who said, "Send us your shoes and we'll see..." Anyway, they sent me a pair of new shoes. I was very impressed that they stood behind their product and replaced it for me when it hadn't worked the way it should have. I don't know if I'm quite ready to get any Dockers elastic waistband slacks yet, but nonetheless, I like my shoes.

Public Confessions on Merried Life

1. Turns out Merry got pulled over by a cop on our wedding day as she was going to get her hair done at 5:00 AM, she never told me! I only found out when I was cleaning out the closet and found the warning slip the cop gave her in the box with all our wedding day stuff. If I had only known I was marrying such a reckless law breaker...

2. There were also about 150 more wedding invitations in the wedding day box; we're going to mail them out and see if we can get any more presents. People always say you should treat each other as if you are newly weds every day. If you get an invitation just recognize that we are trying to fulfill that goal of being like newly weds and send us an awesome gift. If you didn't get a thank you note after the first go-around, this is your chance, I guarantee that every one who sends a gift this time will get a thank you note!

3. Finals are upon us, basically Armageddon. So if you're expecting to hear from us any time soon don't fret, you are still loved; we're just extremely busy. On the other hand, it could be that we just don't love you any more (see item #2 in this post for how you can win our love back).

(This kind of Armageddon)

(Not this kind, if finals were like watching Armageddon I wouldn't be able to take it)

4. I think we should change our blog name to the title of this post, let me know what you think.

5. Listening to Mannheim Steamroller is one of my guilty pleasures at Christmas time.

I am an aunt...again!

I now have 20 nieces and nephews!  My sister Erin had her 2nd baby this weekend.  His name is McCoy, and he was 8 pounds and 4 ounces and 19.5 inches long.  I am so grateful for my family, and I am so glad that we now have a new member!  :D  I'll post pictures whenever I get any.

Phone Troubles

I lost my phone last week on BYU campus.  I kept expecting someone to turn it in to the lost and found, so I've been without my phone this week, which has been kind of annoying.  And finally yesterday I got a new SIM card and phone so that I could communicate with the world again.

Now the problem is that I don't have any of my numbers from my old SIM card.  So, if you want me to have your phone number, please call me or text me and leave me a message with your name and number.

Busy, Busy

I am so sad that I haven't yet posted in November!  (This post doesn't count because it's just an excuse post.)  I have so many fun posts planned, and school just keeps getting in the way.  But never fear, November is going to be an awesome month with lots of posts about things we're grateful for (not the least of which will be this coming weekend!).

Movie Mania

I am going to start compiling a list of movies that I want to see. That way, when I have time to watch something, I can think of something that I'd like. I always blank when it's time to choose a movie!

Here are some movies that I have on my list:

The Ten Commandments (I'm in a Charlton Heston-y mood)
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2
Dan in Real Life
**Edit** Dark Matter Thanks for the recommendation, Erin!
**Edit** Akeelah and the Bee Thanks for the recommendation, Casey!
Ghandi (We just watched Prince of Persia with Ben Kingsley in it, which reminded me that I wanted to watch Ghandi)

What movies are you hankering to see? Do you have any suggestions for me?

Harry Potter Rap

I few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Terrace in the Wilkinson Center on BYU campus, doing some homework.  They frequently have people perform there during the day, especially to advertise for upcoming performances by various groups.  This guy came and sang this song, and I was seriously cracking up about it.  Thank you, Natalia, for posting this link so that I could relive the moment.

Ugh!

It's the scraping-ice-off-the-car-window time of year again!

General Conference Weekend

General Conference is a time for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to listen to the words of our prophet and apostles, as well as other leaders in our church. Whether you gather in Salt Lake in the Conference Center or Tabernacle, or watch conference from the comfort of your own home, it's a wonderful time to hear from inspired people, and a cause for reflection that can last all year long. Conference happens twice a year, in April and October, and the talks are printed in the church magazine The Ensign, with the original video being posted on the internet here.

Even though conference weekend was several wees ago, I wanted to write about it. My top 10 reasons for loving conference weekend this year:

1. My mom and dad visited. My parents like to come up to Utah and attend as many sessions in the Conference Center as they can. So we got to spend time with them, play some games, and chat a lot. They are some of my favorite people!

2. Dave and I went to a farmers' market that Saturday. We had been meaning to go to the farmers' market for several weeks, to check out their produce, and also just to get into the fall spirit! It was fairly small, but still fun to wander around and gawk.

3. We bought some things at the farmers' market. One of the items we bought was a spaghetti squash. Yummy! We also bought a bag full of small onions. Dave and I love onions, and we use them in everything. So even though the onions are small, they'll last us a long time. The last thing we bought was some jalapeno jelly. Have any of you tried this before? My friend Erin Roundy told me abut it, so when I saw it I had to try it. It's sweet jelly, but it has a jalapeno kick! It is so good on toast.

4. I got to go to church in my pajamas! I love being able to sleep in and then wrap up in a blanket on the couch to listen to conference.

5. Favorite talk #1 - President Uchtdorf spoke about slowing down and getting back to the basics during the rough periods of life. He is a humorous speaker, and really touched my heart about my need to simplify.

6. Favorite talk #2 - Elder Christofferson spoke about using our time and freedom of choice wisely. Mostly he spoke about consecrating our lives. When I was a missionary I dedicated a lot of my study time to studying the law of consecration and what that meant to me personally. It was nice to hear this talk and be reminded of that.

7. Favorite talk #3 - Elder Oaks spoke about personal communication and priesthood communication. I always love Elder Oaks's talks, and I really felt the love of my Savior through this talk.

8. Favorite talk #4 - President Monson spoke about gratitude. I am working on writing in a gratitude journal everyday, so this was a very interesting talk to me.

9. Favorite talk #5 - Elder Ballard spoke about addiction. I loved this talk because when he spoke about overcoming addiction, he gave such a powerful testimony of the Atonement.

10. Spending time with Dave! We had a great weekend together, one that was spiritually uplifting and a lot of fun.

Weekend in Colorado

Last weekend Dave and I drove to Colorado to bring his aunt Angee back home.  We got to visit this beautiful city:

 

 

Denver was really fun to visit.  We spent time with Angee and her husband Don.  We also stayed with Dave's cousin Tiffany and her husband Joe.  And we got to play alot with Tiffany's daughter, Madi.  Such a cutie!

There were some train tracks right by Tiffany's house, and we had to wait for this really long train.  It made me think of waiting to cross the tracks in Flagstaff.  I like trains!

On Friday, when our family was working, Dave and I decided to go to the Denver aquarium.  Check out these awesome pictures!

One huge, ugly fish!  These kinds of fish can live up to 100 years.  Crazy.

A shark.  Dunnnn-DUN!  Dunnnn-DUN!

A large sting ray.  We got to "pet" some sting rays in a petting pool.  They felt like a really soft rubber.  Fun!

I love this picture!  Look at all these colorful starfish, anemonie and coral!

This doesn't look like we took the picture, but we did.

This was the scariest, biggest shark in the tank.  JAWS!!!

Jelly fish.  This tank is a jelly-filled.  (Those of you who like Strange Brew will get it.)

A saw-tooth shark.  At least, that's what we called it.  I don't know it's real name.

We also went to this really cool cornmaze while we were in CO.  I told Dave earlier this year that I really wanted to go to a cornmaze in October.  So he asked his cousin to look up cornmazes around Denver.  This is the one that we found:

There were 24 (I think) checkpoints in the maze.  You used a little map of the maze to find your way around, and at each checkpoint you used a hole punch (each with a different shape) to mark off the checkpoint on your map.  I think that people who got them all could enter for a prize.  We couldn't get to all of them.  We were with Tiffany and Madi, and Madi's legs were just so short that there was no way we could get to all of them.  She's almost 2.  But I wanted to go to a few, instead of just wandering around aimlessly, and Dave worked with me to read the map.  He's such a sweetie!

Not Even a Woman

***Warning!!!***This post may contain some highly offensive material to women who dislike being put down and laughed at for being a woman. Don't worry; I was offended too.

Today I went to a graduate student society activity at BYU. It was a "what every grad student should know" lecture, and I thought it would be very informative, which it was. There was one speaker who talked about student debt, how to decide how much to take on, and how to manage it. He also talked about how getting out of debt as soon as possible allows you to start investing your money in ways that makes interest work for you. All good advice.

The second speaker started out good too. He talked about how students need to balance their lives as graduate students. There needs to be a balance in pride and humility. There needs to be a balance in patience and desire to achieve. And there needs to be a balance between hard work and enjoying life. All of this sounded like good advice too.

It was when he started to illustrate these points individually that the offensive stuff came out. He was talking about how he thought he was really cool when he was a graduate student. He was accomplishing lots of stuff and getting good grades. He thought he was important in his field. He was "The man." Then he said that the more he interacted with professionals, the more he realized how stupid his pride was. He wasn't "The man." He wasn't even "The woman."

!!!

I couldn't believe he said that! Oh no, it's bad to realize that you're not the man in your field. But the humiliation to realize that you're not EVEN a WOMAN!!

I know that he didn't mean to say it this way. He probably had no idea what he was saying or how some people could take it. So I was willing to let it go and listen to the rest of his speech. But I was surprised to hear quite a bit of giggling coming from the female portion of the audience that thought that the degrading statement about women was actually funny. Wow. There are some women who will laugh at anything. That's all I have to say.

(Dave's thoughts: Having become closely acquainted with a woman over the last couple of years, all I can say is: she really is "...always a woman to me..." Cue Billy Joel...) (Oh, and don't mess around with Merry when she's feeling feministy.)

Ben-Hur

Over several weeks, Dave and I watched various segments of the epic film, Ben-Hur. We had to watch it in segments because it is LONG! It's 3 hours and 32 minutes long. I'll give a summary in this post, but a longer synopsis can be found here.

It wasn't until after I watched the movie that I found out that it was subtitled "A Tale of the Christ." I knew that the movie was famous for the chariot race scene and that it had Charlton Heston in it, but that's about all I knew. So I was surprised to see as much religion in it as it had. The movie details the life of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a Jewish prince in Jerusalem under Roman rule. His life is paralleled by certain events in the life of Christ that influence Ben-Hur. He is falsely accused by the Roman tribune who was his childhood friend, and spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge from him and from the Romans who enslave his people. But his heart is eventually softened by the teachings of Christ which are told to him by the woman he loves.

I've seen Charlton Heston in some pretty funky roles. Can anyone say Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes? Or Detective Thorn in Soylent Green? But I really liked him in his role as Judah Ben-Hur. He is such an intense actor, and this was one of his most well known roles. The movie won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it won the Oscar for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it!

Fall Hike

After our adventure at the rock, Dave and I went further up the canyon and had a fall hike!

The air was crisp and the leaves were starting to change in spots.

It was a beautiful day.

This picture is kind of dark, but I wanted to show that Dave and I were actually there in these beautiful surrounding!

We hiked up to Big Springs, which is the meadow where we got engaged.

Here's a shot of the mountains from the meadow.

It really was a fun day!

Jumping in at The Rock

I have been meaning to post this for quite a while. Dave and I like to have fun on the Provo River, and one Friday we decided to go for our last jump of the season at The Rock.

This is the rock that President Monson has talked about playing at when he was young, so you know this boulder has witnessed a lot of fun over the years.

Here we are, walking on the railroad tracks from Vivian Park up the Provo River to where the rock is.

Dave humors me by posing for the blog!

Here is the picture of the rock again.  This was around September 15th (I can't remember the exact date) and it was starting to get cold here in Utah.  And up the canyon at this spot, it was a bit chilly.  And that was before getting into this ice cold water!

Here are the after shots!  Dave was thinking, "Why do you have a camera in my face?"

And I was thinking, "Wow, that was invigorating!"

Shout out to Isaac and Camber!!

Dear Friends in Iowa,

Today I was listening to Ingrid Michaelson. Particularly her song "Everybody." It brought back some really fun memories. Here are a couple.

First, you guys introduced us to that song on our trip back from hiking around Nephi, which was a few weeks after Dave and I got married. I loved everything about love (such a newly wed!) and I also really liked Ingrid Michaelson, so I started singing this song all the time after that.

Second, Dave really likes to change the words to songs. I'm sure you've experienced this before. Well, soon the beautiful Ingrid Michaelson words "Everybody, everybody wants to love; everybody, everybody wants to be loved," became the somewhat morbid "Everybody, everybody likes to eat; everybody, everybody likes to be eaten." I don't know if you ever heard this version, but it has brought us a lot of laughs during the past year of marriage.

I guess the point is, we miss you, and can't wait to see you!

Love,
Your Friends in Utah (a.k.a. Your REAL Best Friends!)

In Which Dave and Merry Are Accidentally Awesome!!!

When Dave and I go running, we occasionally run down a trail next to a canal, because it's pretty and offers some variety to the run. We go by horses and dogs, and some fields. It's pretty fun.

This trail runs through several big city blocks. We usually run until it comes to a little side street, and then go around a fence and onto the side street so that we don't have to do a huge long run. But sometimes we take the trail until it hits 9800 North, and then run a few blocks back to 27th, and then home. This is one of our longer runs. But I knew that the trail also crossed 94th and 90th somewhere down there, and we planned on running that full distance to 90th someday, just to see how awesome we were.

Well, on Saturday, Dave suggested that we run on the trail to 94th. We'd never done this before, but we were thinking that a longer run would be fun, and this would bring us one step closer to our goal of running to 90th and back. So we started into uncharted territory! We ran by new dogs! We dodged around horse droppings that we'd never seen before! We scared a lot of ducks that hung out in that section of the canal! Okay, it really wasn't that much more exciting than our usual canal runs, but it felt good to know that we were pushing ourselves.

Well, we came to the end of the next section of canal. By this time, the canal had curved to the left, and we were heading just about west, instead of north. When we turned off the canal trail, we headed north, expecting to come to 94th so we could turn east and head home. Well, it turns out that there's no through street at that point! Or at least, none of the streets that we saw looked like through streets. And there was no 94th. There was 9490, and 9350, but no 9400. Uh, sorry honey! I THOUGHT our trail intersected with 94th!

We could have just turned around on the trail, but we'd already run quite a ways to try to find a through street, and we didn't want to turn back. So we ended up running 4 more blocks down to 90th and completing our really long run!

Lest you think that 4 blocks isn't really that much more to add, it was 4 extra blocks down to 90th, then 4 more blocks back that we wouldn't have had to run. And 8 block in Utah equals 1 mile. So we added an extra mile to our run. We estimated that our run was 4.5-5 miles long. Fun!

Weekend!!

Yes!  It's the weekend.  This doesn't mean that I have nothing to do, but it does mean that I'll get a few more hours of time with my husband than I normally do!  And, seriously, who wouldn't want to spend more time with this man?

What kind of sweaters do pirates like?

Arrrrrrgyle ones!

September 11th/Autumn Time

On Saturday, Dave and I went for a run.  The weather was brisk and pleasant.  The sun was shining.  It was great to get outside and exercise after a week of school and work.  There were two things that I reflected on as I ran: 1) the date, September 11th; and 2) the season, with its oncoming harvest.

My thoughts on #1: Out on lawns that we passed, there were flags out to...I don't know the right word to use.  Celebrate September 11th?  That doesn't seem right.  Remind people of September 11th?  That's probably closer to the purpose of the flags.  Either way, I thought quite a bit about the events of that day 9 years ago and how it has affected my life.

I also reflected on the disturbance that this event has caused in the world and in our country.  There are lots of people who have been rejected or discriminated against because they are (or look) Middle Eastern.  There are people who have been attacked and abused for their religious beliefs. There are even Christians who think it is okay to show great disrespect to religious symbols and to the people who hold them sacred as some kind of protest.  I ask, why can't Christians forgive and show respect, even if there is still pain caused by memories of the September 11th attack?  Why can't people who weren't involved in that event be respected and loved?

September 11th should be a day when everyone everywhere thinks about the lives that were lost in the terror attacks, and also about the injustices that have come about and how we can change that.

My thoughts on #2: As Dave and I ran, I noticed lots of signs of approaching fall.  The temperature was fairly low.  There were apple trees and alfalfa fields.  We saw a full pumpkin field the other day, and it was the first time that we had recognized the crop as pumpkins.

I reflected that Autumn time is a time for harvesting again at the end of the year.  We're blessed with so much abundance.  But there's no more time for a farmer to improve his crop.  It has to be harvested how it is.

We (everyone) are going to be harvested by God, whether we're ready or not.  At the end of our lives (which could come any time) we will be judged with how we've acted and the faith that we've had.  We should demonstrate that faith daily.  And as a Christian, I don't think that disrespecting other religious beliefs and texts is a demonstration of faith.  So, beforfe we are "harvested", we need to try today to be the people that God wants us to be.

ELang 105

I've been pretty busy since school started.  It's the usual run-to-class, run-to-the-library-to-study, run-to-catch-the-bus-home thing.  But I have something new in the mix!  It's ELang 105.

ELang 105 is BYU's freshman writing class for international students.  It helps international students learn more (or something) about the writing process, academic writing, formatting, plagiarism avoidance, and research.  It's a way to get them started on writing without throwing them in over their heads with a teacher whose familiar with second language learners.  Then they do their normal advanced writing class in whatever area they are studying.

And I guess that technically ELang 105 isn't new to me.  I TA-ed this class for almost 2 years when Alison McMurry was the teacher.  I got to do a lot of the same stuff that she did as a teacher, but I started out slow, doing basicly nothing.  Alison was my mentor and she organized the class and how it advanced, and she taught me so much about teaching, and teaching this class in particular.

And now I am teaching it!  I am teaching a BYU day time course!  I teach 3 days a week for an hour, and have office hours 3 hours a week.  I am in charge, and I pretty much know what I'm doing, thanks to my great training.  We've just finished our 2nd week of class, and it's pretty nice.

I am technically considered a student teacher, since I am still a graduate student.  So I don't get my own office.  But I do get my own desk (that I only have to share with 2 people) in a student instructor office (that I only share with about 30 people).  But this is a great experience for me, to build my instruction skills and to build my resume.

And yes, this class does add to the amount of things I have to do.  It does make me busier.  But it makes me happier.  I enjoy teaching this class more than I enjoy the classes I'm taking right now.  And I think that's always how it's going to be.  I want to be a great teacher, and I have to take these classes to do that, but my real motivation comes from interaction with students in the classroom and I don't think I'll ever want to move away from that.

Kite Adventures

Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height!

Dave and I bought a kite!  It was just a few bucks at Walmart, and we've already got quite a bit of enjoyment out of it, as you can see below:

Here is Dave, getting the kite ready.

It's a cute fish, and the flaps that move are its fins!

Moving out into the field before it's airborne.

You can just barely see it up in the left corner.

The tail that you can see is a school of smaller fish!  Fun!

We had a lot of fun just hanging around and watching it.

Another day we went to Walmart and got some more string to add to the length we already had.  But I didn't get any pictures of it higher up because we probably wouldn't have been able to see the kite in the pictures anyway.  It was way to high!

And, just for fun, here are the lyrics from the song in Mary Poppins:

Mr. Banks:
With tuppence for paper and strings
You can have your own set of wings
With your feet on the ground
You're a bird in a flight
With your fist holding tight
To the string of your kite

Oh, oh, oh!
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!

Bert:
When you send it flyin' up there
All at once you're lighter than air
You can dance on the breeze
Over 'ouses and trees
With your first 'olding tight
To the string of your kite

Londoners:
Oh, oh, oh!
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Let's go fly a kite!

Little Miss Muffet

I was killing spiders the other day, much to Dave's chagrin.  He has a soft spot for spiders.  One once saved him from almost certain death...Anyway!  He compared me with Little Miss Muffet, and the silliness went on from there.

[Curds and whey are basically like cottage cheese]

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating cottage cheese.
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her

[And said, would you share with me please?]

[And said, my what lovely knees!]

[And said, my what knobby knees!]

[And said, would you share with me, geez!]

Anniversary Weekend

If you look at the very bottom of our page, you'll notice that we have a ticker proclaiming that today Dave and I have been married for 369 days (Thanks Jo-Pete!).  That's right!  Sunday was our anniversary!

The last year has been a wonderful journey, and I wouldn't trade it for anything!  Okay, enough mushy stuff.  This post is to let you all know about the awesome things we did this weekend to celebrate.

First of all, on Friday I woke up to this beautiful bouquet of daisies by my bedside!  I adore daisies, and Dave loves to get them for me!  (Or at least he pretends to).

Later that day, Dave took me to get a professional massage.  I'd never had one before, and let me tell you, it was great!  I got it done at the Massage Cabin.  It's a massage practice in a home, and my massage therapist, Haruko, was great.  We didn't get any pictures of this experience but I'm sure I'll be back!

Next, on Saturday, Dave and I drove up to Bear Lake.  You may remember our bad experience floating down the Provo River, so we decided to take out a new blow up raft and try it out on a lake instead of a river.  We stopped by this place to get life jackets:

And then we hit the road!  I love road trips!

When we got to Bear Lake, we had this cute stretch of beach all to ourselves.  It was a gorgeous day at the Lake!

Here I am in our boat.

It turns out that it was a really windy day, and the wind kept blowing us back toward the shore.  So we didn't go out very far.  It's a good thing that we didn't start from the opposite shore, or the wind would have blown us all the way across the lake!  But aside from the boat, we had a lot of fun playing in the water and sunning ourselves on the beach:

It was a beautiful day, and we saw lots of birds flying around.

And of course, we decided to put the BARE back in Bear Lake!!

After we were done at Bear Lake, we headed down to Logan to stay at the Anniversary Inn.  And I'm sad to say that the only picture I got of the place was the heart-shaped tub!

I really liked this tub, and really I liked the whole place.  Our room was the Player's Clubhouse, and we had a foosball table and a putting green in our room.  The breakfast was great, as well as the sparkling cider and cheesecake that was waiting in our room when we arrived.  I would highly recommend the Anniversary Inn, whether it's your anniversary or not!
We came home on Sunday, which was our actual anniversary.  To celebrate some more we ate a few bites of our wedding cake, which we've been saving in our freezer for a year.

It was pretty good.  Originally, this cake was excellent!  A year later, the frosting really was the best part.

                                      This was Dave's reaction for the camera.  It wasn't really that bad!
All in all, it was a wonderful anniversary.  I am so happy that I found Dave and that I was wise enough to marry him.  He makes me so happy, and I hope that all of our years of marriage are as fulfilling as this first one has been.