Merry Christmas to All

First and foremost, we want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas! We hope you are enjoying your holiday. We certainly have been enjoying ours. We've been able to spend a lot of time with both of our families and much fun has been had by all. Here are a few highlights from our Christmas Eve.

In the morning, we participated in a Christiansen Christmas tradition: Graham Carcker houses (Graham crackers are much more easy to work with than gingerbread). Here is our final product:




We spent a bit of time just getting the main structure up. Lisa did some great work in building it. After doing that and the roof, I think both of us weren't wanting to spend too much more time adding lavish decorations. I contributed the path and the gumdrop trees, while the snowman and wreath were Lisa's creations.

That evening we were part of a somewhat new tradition: acting out the Christmas story. I always get the part of Samuel the Lamanite (a prophet in the Book of Mormon). Here I am in character:



As most of you know, at the end of Samuel's prophesying, the people become very angry and cast stones and arrows at him. God protects Samuel and no one is able to hit him. We reenact this part, as the little kids are always eager to throw things at someone. Unfortunately for me, our reenactment does not include the inability of people hitting Samuel with stones and arrows. I did a pretty good job dodging them this year, but this part is never portrayed 100% accurately.

After some more Christmas activities, we headed over to Lisa's parents' house and participated in the Fisos' Christmas traditions. We got to eat some more delicious food, and talk more about the Christmas story. Fortunately, nothing was thrown at me there. They all then got to open a present of PJs and a book, a tradition Lisa and I will be carrying into our family. After all that, we watched Despicable Me. Lisa and I had seen it before, but still enjoyed watching it with the family.

After all these fun activities, it was time to head home and get to bed. It was a very good Christmas Eve, and the good times continued into Christmas. We have had a wonderful holiday season and hope you have as well.

What Dreams May Come

Friday night Lisa and I finally got around to seeing the movie Inception at the dollar theater. I loved it. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, and now I need to watch it several more times to try to catch things I missed the first time. After watching it, I began to wonder what kind of dreams I would have as I slept that night. Well, I didn't really have any dreams specifically tied to the movie, but I did have a unique experience.

In my dream, I was doing something with my two brothers. I don't really remember all that was going on, but they were doing things I really didn't like. I was getting annoyed and asked them to stop. They would say stuff like they were done or whatever, and then go right back to doing it. It was making me very mad. My anger continued to build until I just blew up - I suddenly woke up, picked up my pillow, and very angrily launched it across the room. Not really being conscious yet, I laid back down and was going to continue my sleep. It wasn't until a few moments later that my brain processed everything that had just happened. I thought to myself, "Wait, what just happened there?" I had fun in the morning explaining to Lisa why there was a pillow in our closet.

This is all pretty humorous, but it wasn't the first time I've been driven to extreme anger by a sibling in a dream. A couple years ago, I had a dream where my brother was twisting my arm behind my back, and it hurt a lot. I was begging him to stop, but he just kept going. As my pain and anger reached its boiling point, I had no choice but to retaliate. I brought my other arm around to punch him, when I woke up and fiercely punched my bed 3 or 4 times. As with my experience this week, it took a while for me to figure out what was going on. I was still steaming mad and it took me a few minutes to cool down. I'm just glad this was before I married Lisa and no one was in the bed with me.

I've told these experiences to my family, and one sister seems to think I have deep psychological issues. While I don't think she's too serious about that claim, there's one thing I do know for sure: I'm very glad my brothers are only jerks in my subconscious.

Let it snow!!!

It snowed today!!! I like the snow and it looks pretty outside. :) Now that Thanksgiving is past, I'm finally allowed to start talking about Christmas. Dan and I are putting up our tree on Monday and I am very excited. I made a tree skirt for Dan and I to use. Here it is:



My Mom's cousin did the quilting on the tree skirt and she did an amazing job. Now we just have to get the tree up so that we can put the tree skirt underneath it. :)

A Puzzling Development

Don't let the title fool you. Everything is well with us. We just want to boast of our most recent accomplishment: The completion of a puzzle! A puzzle you say? Yes, on Sunday we finished a puzzle, and not just any puzzle, a 3D puzzle! I received it as a gift many years ago, and one day we decided to start putting it together. It took some time, but eventually we were able to get all the sides put together as seen below:



And a closer look:


Then came the task of assembling all the sides. Let me tell you, Lisa is quite the master at this. I instructed on where to put stuff, but she did the real skill of attaching them together. After some tedious labor we finally finished. Here is the end result:



And an overhead view:


And the classic dramatic closeup:


You may now proceed to praise our achievement.

Playing With the Baby

Yes, yes, once again it's been a long time since we've written. Life just seems to continue to move forward without too much going on the last few weeks. One thing that I've enjoyed lately is our child, still yet to be born. Even at his non-existent age, he already seems to be getting quite a "kick" out of life (yes, very bad pun intended).

He is a very active little fetus. I'm very glad of this, because he lets Lisa know he is doing just fine very often. He likes to tickle Lisa and I think it's funny. I'll just hear Lisa giggling or laughing at random times, and I know it's the baby playing with Mommy. Lisa told me of an experience at work when she was on a conference call, and right in the middle of it laughed because of the baby. Her boss gave her the weirdest look. She explained later, and he thought it was pretty funny.

Another thing I really like is that he likes to play with his daddy a lot too. It seems like every time Lisa lies down next to me with her belly touching me, he starts kicking away at me. I can't feel those kicks yet, but there have been a few times when I've put my hand on Lisa's stomach, and I can feel him kicking away. It's very cool feel your son kicking at your hand.

As he's gotten bigger, Lisa is feeling even more from him. He seems to like to do somersaults and jumping jacks. He'll be really active one day and get a good workout in, and then just rest and recover the next day. He's going to be pretty ripped when he's actually born. He also very much likes basketball (Not that he would have a choice in the matter :)). Lisa and I were at the BYU basketball game Friday night and he was moving all over the place. He's already prepping and excited about his long and illustrious basketball career.

So, the baby is keeping us entertained even when we can't even see him yet. I'm excited for the much more entertainment to come once he's kicking and screaming out in the real world. :)

October Tales

So Dan and I haven't written much lately because we haven't had too much to write about...so here are some of the short stories from our last couple weeks.

Short story #1: As those of you who read this blog know, I've been able to feel our little boy kick for a little while now. :) I very much like this feeling and I've really wanted Dan to be able to feel him kick too. A few days ago Dan finally felt the baby kick! I was very excited. Dan had his hand on my stomach and I kept trying to move it to the general area that the baby was kicking at. The baby gave a good hard kick and Dan thought he might have felt something. Then it happened again. :) Now we get to wait until the baby kicks so hard that we can see his foot poke out.

Short story #2: Dan and I went over to his parents house last Monday and we carved pumpkins for FHE. Cleaning the pumpkin was gooey and gross as always. I stuck my hand inside first and I made sure to share some of that first handful of goop with my husband. I think he liked it. ;) Anyway, we carved a totally awesome pumpkin that sort of looks like a ghost or like someone that is very nervous about something-like he's glancing over his shoulder. When everyone else was done with their pumpkins, we lined them up in a row and ours was on the end. It looked like it was scared of Dan's brother's pumpkin. We may post pictures later....right now we can't access them.

Short story #3: Yesterday our ward had our practice for our primary program. Dan got to come help us set up for the practice, then he got to run around and pick up ice and pizza for us to feed to the kids after the practice. He was very sweet to help and we very much appreciated his help. The practice was, of course, chaotic; but things went much more smoothly today. The kids were still a bit restless, but they were 100 times better than yesterday. Of course we did have the kid who said, "God's only Forgotten Son," instead of "God's only Begotten Son." We also had sunbeams, who really just can't sit still for THAT long, that started playing peek-a-boo with the congregation and other fun things like that. But you know what, that's part of what makes the primary program so much fun. :)

Short story #4: Dan and I finally saw Toy Story 3!!! I highly recommend it. We have a friend who was working as an intern for Pixar and he got to work on that movie a little bit. We looked for his name in the credits but we couldn't find it. Still, it is an awesome movie and I would watch it again.

Short story #5: Apparently it is the season for boy babies. Between my friends and my ward, I know of 7 women who are expecting. 4 of the 7 are having boys, 1 is having a girl, and the other 2 don't know yet.

Short story #6: Dan and I are starting a new family Halloween tradition. We are going to watch the movie, "The Burbs," every Halloween. For those of you who have not seen it, watch it and let me know what you think. It is a good movie to watch on Halloween.

Well, that's about all that I can think to write about right now. We'll try to not wait another 2 weeks before posting again. :)

And the baby is..................

Healthy! Lol, I know what you all wanted to know was that the baby is..........bigger than expected!! Wait, still not what you expected to see? Hmmmm...let's try this again...the baby is............A BOY!!!

Dan and I got to go in for our 20 week ultrasound today...though he (the baby) is measuring in at about 21 and a half weeks. It was really cool to see the ultrasound. We both enjoyed watching the baby kick and twist and turn. We got to see so many different angles. We got to see his heart and other organs too. The nurse pointed out everything and told us about how the blood is suppose to flow in his brain and heart. It was really cool to see how everything is developing. We got to see his little feet. :)

The nurse asked us if we wanted to know if the baby was a boy or a girl. She wanted to make sure she didn't spoil any surprises. Luckily, we both wanted to know. I say luckily, because Dan and I had both already both seen what we needed to see to know that the baby is in fact a boy.

The baby kept kicking the sensor thing that the nurse was using to look at him. It tickled when he'd kick it. He likes to move around a lot, in fact he's been kicking for most of the time that I've been writing this post. Dan and I are both very excited to be able to hold him and play with him. It was so much fun to be able to see him today. :)

Stay Tuned.....

This is a very exciting week for both Lisa and I. On Tuesday, we go to have the ultrasound for the baby! We both are very eager to find out if we will be having a boy or a girl. This whole time both of us have thought it will be a boy, and we always refer to the baby as a he, and we talk about our son a lot. I feel like if the they say it's a girl, I'm going to want to ask, "are you sure?" We'll see if we're right.... In the meantime, here are some funny little stories about the baby from today.

Today in church, baby was having a lot of fun with mommy. Lisa said he kept kicking her in just the right spot that was super ticklish. Right during sacrament meeting, Lisa had to work really hard to hold back laughter since it ticked so much. I'm just thinking, "Great, our child already has reverence issues....." :)

Later, we were out driving, and Lisa leaned over and kissed me. When she did so, it caused some pain in her stomach so she said, "oh, baby didn't like that. He's probably saying, 'Ew! Too much PDA mom and dad!'" To this I quickly responded, "PDA is how you got there son!" Then my brain reminded me what the P stands for in that acronym. I had to quickly insert a "Wait, that's not true." There was nothing P about the DA that got him in there. :)

Check back in on Tuesday with the big news! And if you already haven't done so, vote on our poll. We'll see who's right!

Kicks and Giggles

During the past 2 weeks, I started to feel the baby kicking. :) It is a very good feeling and the kicks seem to get more frequent and stronger as time passes. Sometimes when the baby kicks it seems like the baby's trying to tell Dan and I something. For example, the baby likes barbecue. :) I went to Goodwood with some co-workers to celebrate a co-worker's last day because he'd gotten a job more suited to his family and when I got back to work the baby started kicking a lot. I think the baby enjoyed the food more than I did. :)

During conference the baby started kicking when one of the speakers started to talk about parenting. It was almost as if the baby was saying, "Pay attention Mom!" The baby did the same thing today while I was listening to KSL radio at work. A Mormon Ad came on that said, "Mom, Dad, if you love us you'll ask the important questions." The baby kicked again. :)

The baby also apparently wants Daddy to change all of the stinky diapers because when Dan and I were talking about that, the baby kicked to indicate that he agreed with me! :)

Fall Colors

Lisa and I both love the Fall colors, so went for a hike to Big Springs in Provo Canyon yesterday. My mom and my brother and his family joined us in the fun. It was a good hike, and the scenery was most lovely. No fun or cool stories from this week in our lives, so I'll just post a few pictures from the hike.















Many more pictures from the hike can be found here.

Random Ramblings

Last Tuesday Dan and I went to my 16 week appointment. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat again. :) I like that sound! In about 4 more weeks we'll find out if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl. :) Today someone told me that for the first time she thinks that I look a little bit pregnant. Trust me, I feel like I look a lot more than a little pregnant. Nothing fits anymore, I have 2 pairs of pants that I can actually fit in to. At least most of the morning sickness stuff has passed. I no longer get sick every morning and every night. Milk still kind of makes me throw up, but not all the time. Still, it's interesting that 4 months have already passed. Time has seemed to go by pretty quickly. The summer is gone. It's weird that it's already fall and the leaves are changing color and all that. It seems like time is going by really fast. Dan and I drove up to Wallsburg, UT last night, just for fun. There is a lot of color up in the mountains already. I love the fall colors, but it seems like they always disappear too quickly. It'll be winter before long and as winter starts to ease into spring, Dan and I will have a new little baby in our home. Then life will start to get hectic. :)

It Is Done

This last weekend I successfully competed in the Red Rock Relay. It was quite the experience. Since you have nothing better to do than to read our blog, let me tell you all about it. :)

We drove down to Cedar City Thursday night to get all checked in and ready for the race. Some local scouts had a spaghetti dinner thing for the racers. It was pretty good for only $2. While we were eating I was listening to others talk, and I felt pretty out of place. As most of you probably know, I am NOT a runner. I just kind of got roped into this whole thing. People were talking about how much they love doing these relays, and how "addictive" they are. Everyone on our team was just looking forward to it being over.

So, the next morning around 11:30 am I got to start my first leg. For about the first 2 miles it was a pretty steep incline. It was about a 400 foot elevation gain in those couple of miles. It was pretty difficult, but early on, I saw another runner walking up ahead of me. I knew I had to pass her. At the same time though, I had to make sure I didn't go too fast and use up all my energy and kill myself. So very methodically I made my way up and made the pass. After getting up the hill, the rest of the run was mostly down hill and pretty easy going. It was 3.9 miles in all. It was very pretty where I was running and was kind of nice. I felt like Forrest Gump out there. Well, my run came to an end, and I was feeling pretty good. "This isn't too bad. It's kind of fun," I thought to myself.

That evening around 9:00 pm I began my 2nd run. It began with a hill too, but it wasn't as steep as the first one. Again I saw someone not too far ahead of me, and I had to pass again. She wasn't walking, so it wasn't going to be as easy this time. I got maybe 5 feet behind her and then I think she sped up a little. We ended up going the same pace for quite a while after that. Then I saw the top of the hill, and decided to speed up a bit to make the pass. I was able to pass just as we reached the top. I was running for a while, when I heard people gaining on me from behind. I didn't want to be passed, but they were going way too fast for me keep up. So, I just lagged behind. It was dark when I was running this time, and I could look up and see tons of stars in the sky. That was pretty cool. Later in the run, I saw someone way ahead of me. I was slowly gaining on them. I knew that this leg ended with a right turn, so I kept looking out for it. The road started turning right, and I thought my time was running out to pass. So, I picked it up and started running pretty fast. I was able to catch up and pass. I felt pretty good about it, but then the road kept going to the right. It was a bigger turn than I realized. So, I kept on running for a while, but I finally finished it up. This one was 4.5 miles. This was a pretty good run too, and I wasn't too tired after. "This is pretty fun," I thought, "maybe I'll do it again next year."

After our team finished this part we drove to where we'd be starting running again. It was about midnight when we got there and it was time to try to get some sleep. That didn't really happen. Sleep doesn't really work in a car after running 4.5 miles just a couple hours before. So, around 6:00 am it was my turn to run again. Yet again, this leg started with an uphill part. It was less steep than the last two, but it was a bit rough with my legs being so tired. Then, after the uphill, it went fairly steep downhill. So, those muscles got worked out as well. After that, it flattened out for pretty much the rest of the way. At this point, my legs were DEAD. It seemed like I was barely moving as I lumbered along. My legs were dying and begging me to walk. But I really wanted to keep running. All my thoughts of fun and repeating this experience completely evaporated. I decided I was never doing this again. I didn't want to run again period. As I trudged forward, I kept hoping I would see the end of my run. I would see something off in the distance and hope with all hope that that was the end only to see more road ahead. Finally, I made it to the end and was so glad to be done. This run was 5 miles. It was seriously the hardest physical thing I've had to do in a long time.

Well, the rest of the runners on our team finished their runs and we were done. It's been hard to move the last few days, but it's that soreness that feels good after doing something hard. After being in so much pain while running that last leg, I was afraid I would forget that pain and somehow do it again next year. My mind has already started trying to convince me with things like it should be easier now that I've done it once. It kind of worries me. When I was running I had firmly decreed "NEVER AGAIN," and now I'm already at the "maybe....?" stage. Where will I be in 6 months when it's time to decide again? Scary.......

Out of the mouths of babes

On Saturday night Dan and I went to my brother's house to watch BYU defeat Washington in a great game. We were both in our BYU shirts and very excited for the first game of the season. We got there early so that we could claim the monster sack.

While we were sitting there, my sister in law, Jesi, brought my nephew Kai over and said, "What's in Lisa's belly?" Kai pointed at my shirt and immediately said "Football!!!" in a very excited voice. :) I guess he liked my shirt. Jesi whispered "Baby" into his ear so he pointed at my stomach and said, "Baby." Then Kai pointed at Dan's stomach and said, "Baby!" :)

Peachy Keen

You know that feeling you had as a little kid on Christmas eve? How you would get so excited about what awaited you the next day? Well, for Lisa, that day is today. She even told me yesterday she was more excited about tomorrow (Monday Aug 30) than she is for Christmas.

So, what's going on tomorrow that's so very exciting? Some kind of birthday or holiday? Some kind of news about the baby? Nope, you're all wrong. The answer, of course, is that beginning tomorrow fresh peach shakes are back at Taco Amigo! We will be paying them a visit and indulging on the deliciousness that is a fresh peach shake.

Another great thing about this much anticipated event is that Lisa will be much happier any time we drive past the place now. For the last couple of months we'd be approaching the restaurant with great hopes of some word about the shakes on their sign. Our hopes were met with disappointment time and time again. A few weeks ago, we were driving up to it with the same hopes when we made out the first word of "FRESH". We started to get excited, only to see the next word of "BANANA". BANANA? Boooooo!!!!! So, ever since then, when we drive past, Lisa looks, and sees the sign still mocking us, and yells at it in anger. I find it quite humorous, but I think in the long run, it's best if she's not yelling at signs.

After more disappointment this last week, Lisa actually called Taco Amigo and asked when they are coming. When she found out that they were coming on Monday, she sent me an email with about a bazillion smiley faces announcing the great news. She begged and begged to go there on Monday. She didn't have to do much begging, since I'm more than happy to feast upon the goodness.

So, tomorrow, we get to renew our annual (going 2 years strong now) tradition of fresh peach shakes at Taco Amigo. Make sure you don't miss out. It's something you're not going to want to miss.

A Sundance Adventure

Yesterday was my company's summer party. This year it was held up at Sundance. It was fun, but it did not come without some adventure.

The first thing we did when we got there was get on the ski lift. There were some pretty cool views from the lift.





After we got off the lift, we went for a little hike. We were told that "there is a short hike to Stewart falls" that is "fun" and "easy." We figured we could go make this "short" hike real quick and go see Stewart Falls. Well, the hike was actually 1.5 miles and pretty steep at parts, going down. We didn't even have any water with us, so we made sure the pregnant one took it nice and easy. We did get there, and it was very cool.







Being a bit parched, I ventured up close to the waterfall and opened my mouth hoping for some drops. However, instead of falling peacefully into my mouth, a huge drop of water abruptly landed in my eye. That drop would have felt much better in my mouth.

We headed back down to the resort a different way, and it wasn't too bad of a hike, but that was also 1.5 miles. When we got back, we hurriedly looked for bathroom and a drinking fountain. We found a sign with "Restrooms" on it, so we eagerly followed its direction. Unfortunately, we could find no restrooms in that area. We went off looking somewhere else and finally found one. It was nice to finally get some water.

Shortly thereafter, we had dinner, and it was wonderful. Both of us were hungry from the hike, which always makes food taste better. I completely stuffed myself. Then, after dinner, we had evening entertainment from Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. They are a lot of fun, and have some great songs.



And that was pretty much the extent of the party. It was fun, even with the extra unintended adventure. The real adventure, though, will be next year when we get to lug along the little one with us. :)

12 Weeks!

Today Dan and I went to the Dr.'s office for our 12 week visit and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat!!! It was really cool. It took the doctor a few minutes to find the heartbeat but he found it! :) Right after he found the heartbeat, the baby kicked the receiver thing. I couldn't feel the kick, but we could hear it. :) It was a lot of fun. We also found out our official due date...before we'd just been using calculators online to figure it out. The official due date is...February 28th!

TMI

WARNING: This post contains information that may be considered by some to fall in the category of T.M.I, also known as Too Much Information. Proceed reading at your own caution.

One of the 'joyous' parts about being pregnant is the ever present morning sickness. For those of you who don't know too much about pregnancy or morning sickness, let me start by saying that the name is misleading. Morning sickness is NOT just a morning thing. It is an all day long thing and it is not pleasant. Hopefully (fingers crossed, which is making typing very difficult) I'm almost done with the morning sickness phase of my pregnancy. However, having to deal with throwing up 2 to 3 times per day has given me some time to reflect on throwing up and I have realized a few things.

1. What you eat plays a large part in the pleasant or unpleasantness of the throwing up experience. For example, pizza is not an enjoyable food to have come back up your throat. It stings and burns and it doesn't taste at all like the initial pizza did. However, certain other foods can actually be sort of pleasant to throw up. For example, try drinking a glass of that chocolate Instant Breakfast and then a glass of grape juice before throwing up. The result is vomit that tastes like a grape Tootsie Pop. That was probably the most enjoyable combination that I found.

2. Drinking large amounts of liquid helps greatly. It is much easier to throw up when you are well hydrated. It helps to minimize the chunkiness of the throw up, as well as the number of chunks that get caught in your throat, causing you to gag more. (Remember, I warned you about this post before you read it...if you want to stop reading now I won't blame you.)

3. Throwing up when you don't have anything in your stomach to throw up is not a pleasant experience. Bile is bitter and gross and awful to throw up so it's always better to have something in your stomach than to have an empty stomach when morning sickness hits.

However, despite all of the morning sickness and falling asleep at random times, the hoped for outcome is well worth all of the unpleasantness of morning sickness. I think I may be starting to get past all of it...I didn't throw up at all on Friday or Saturday. :) That is a very good thing.

Poll Time!

As you should know by now, Lisa and I are expecting our first child. Now it's time to guess the gender! We have created a poll in the sidebar, so please vote, and we'll see who's right.

Stealth Book Shopping

Now that we've publicly announced Lisa's pregnancy, we can actually share all of the fun adventures that come with it. This one comes from a month or so ago.

Shortly after finding out she was pregnant, Lisa wanted to get the book What to Expect When You're Expecting. We wanted to keep the pregnancy to ourselves for a while, so we had to figure out a way to get the book without people knowing. I suggested getting it online, but Lisa didn't want to have to wait that long. So, one Saturday we set out for some stealth book shopping.

The first stop was Borders. We both like bookstores so we meandered a little looking at different stuff. Then it was time to execute our plan. We needed to quickly find the book, purchase it, and safely make it to the car without being caught by anyone we know. So, we start looking around for it, while also keeping an eye out for anyone we might know. We had a little bit of trouble finding it. A few times we were asked if we needed any help finding anything, and we always responded with a quick, "No thanks." After circling the store 3 times with no luck, we found a section about women's health. We were both looking for it in there when Lisa decides to walk away and look elsewhere. I didn't know she had left and later found myself alone looking through books about women's health. Awkward. We eventually gave up and decided to give Walmart a try.

When we arrived at Walmart, we headed over to the book section and I kept a lookout for anyone we knew. Walmart presented a much higher risk of running into someone we knew. Lisa found the book there, and we carefully scanned the store once more. We then hurried over to the self-checkout and anxiously bought the book. We slipped it into the bag and hurried out to the car. Mission accomplished.

It has been a good and informative book to read through. Since we bought the book, we always had to make sure we hid it back in our bedroom so that no one would see it when they came over. It's nice not to have to worry about that now, but it was a fun little exercise in covert operations.

A New Adventure

We haven't posted much in a while, as many of you have noticed. Part of that is probably just because we have boring lives, but the other part has been largely because we've been holding something back. As most of you now know, thanks to Facebook, Mobolus, and Spokt; Dan and I are expecting a baby around the end of February, beginning of March next year. :) We are very excited! This is definitely the beginning of a new adventure for both of us. Wish us luck!

Adventures in Blood?

First of all, let us apologize for the dull lives we've been living lately. I know you all check this blog every 5 minutes hoping to read about our latest and greatest adventure. It's been a lot of 5 minutes in between posts lately hasn't it? Well, we'll try to fix that (but I give no promises). Now, onto our latest adventure:

This one only involves me. It happened last night while I was donating blood. Great place to have an adventure, right? Well, everything started out normal enough, but that soon changed. When they were screening my blood, the woman doing it was very surprised at my high hemoglobin count. I asked her if it was a bad thing, but she never really answered my question. She just said something like, "Well, usually for males it's between 14 and 17 and yours it at 18 point [something]." (I don't remember the exact number) I didn't ask any further questions about it though. She then asked me if I wanted to do the Double Red Cell Donation or whatever she called it. I thought, "sure, why not?" After I agreed to it, she said something like, "that'll help with your high hemoglobin count." I probably should have asked again about it, but I didn't.

Then came the time to lay down and get poked with the needle. I'm never really worried about this part because the last 6 or 7 times I've given blood they've always complimented me on my veins. I am not kidding - one guy said they were like "garden hoses." So, she sticks the needle in. No big deal. Then I feel her moving it around some. I've heard horror stories about vein misses and moving the needle around. This was getting me a little nervous, but it wasn't too bad. After moving it a little more she tells me, "Sorry, it's like right next to the vein." She then calls over someone to help her, and all 3 of us become very happy when the needle makes it into my vein.

So, I'm just squeezing away on the ball, and I hear some kind of despair from the woman working with me. She calls over for help again and asks the other woman to grab a towel or something. I'm not sure what's going on, but I look over, and it looks like one of the tubes into a bag ripped or something. There was someone I knew laying across the way from me and he asked me jokingly why I was bleeding all over the place. There must have been some blood on the floor. It wouldn't have been the first time I've bled all over a basketball court. But I digress. She apologized for my blood getting out, and I couldn't help but say, "as long as I get to keep most of my blood, I think I'll be ok." They then got it sealed back up, she changed her bloody gloves, and we were back in business.

Or so we thought. The machine that's doing the double red cell thing is beeping a lot, and the woman working with me is getting more and more frustrated. She keeps telling me to do really big squeezes and I'm squeezing all I can. And still it beeps and still she's frustrated. She asks me to try squeezing one more time and "to have a prayer in my heart." Well, I guess I wasn't faithful enough, because it beeped once again and she defeatingly announced that we were done. I don't think I donated very much, but she did say that they got some of my blood, so it wasn't a complete waste.

That was the last of my adventures. I got some good cookies and some good water and completed my little blood donating adventure. All in all, it really wasn't that bad. It was just one turn of bad luck after another. I'm happy to report that I still have blood and that I'm still very much alive.

Odds and Ends

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I thought I'd write a little bit about a couple of the things that have been going on lately.

For Father's Day, Dan and I decided to barbecue some chicken on the little barbecue that Gina and Jon gave to Dan when they moved. We marinated the chicken in this garlic herb stuff and then we set up the barbecue...on our kitchen counter. We opened the window for ventilation, and then we start to light the grill...at least we attempted to light the grill. We couldn't seem to get it right. The lighter wouldn't light and then the matches weren't working. Dan turned off the gas and we looked at it again. I decided that I wanted to try again. I turned on the gas and threw a match in. As soon as the match went in, the flames shot up. I am happy to report that I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes. Despite the rough beginning, the food was actually really good. I would definitely make that chicken again....though without the foot high flames at the beginning.

Last night my little brother Enoch played in the championship game with his little league team. The tournament was double elimination and his team hadn't lost yet so the other team, the Twins, had to beat Enoch's team twice. The Twins won the first game by one run, forcing the second game. Enoch's team came out in the second game and took over. They ended up winning by 10 points in the 5th inning. In Little League, they have what is called a 10 run rule. Enoch hit a triple at the end of the 5th inning to score the 10th and final run. :) This is the second year in a row that Enoch's team has won the Championship Game. It's pretty awesome.

A Time to Train

The company I work for (Xactware) has this Healthy Employee Program they do every summer to get people out and exercising. They have various athletic tournaments and games on Fridays, and it's lots of fun. This year, they are sponsoring 2 teams to run in the Red Rock Relay in September. It's this big long race in which 12 people run 3 different legs totaling about 15 miles each. My brother, who also works for Xactware, wanted to do it, and somehow convinced me to run it too.

So, for the last month or so, I've known that I'm going to be doing this race, and so for this time period, I've been in "training." The quotes around the word "training" mean that my training has consisted of doing nothing different than before I was "training." I hadn't been to worried about the race. I'm still fairly young, and I'm fairly athletic, and so I figured the race wouldn't be too bad. Well, yesterday I decided to actually go for a run, and see how far I could get, so I could gauge for the race.

I decided I wanted to run up Provo Canyon because, for one, there's no need to stop for stop lights up there, and secondly, there is a bit of an incline, which would help more for the race in September. We live about a mile and half from the canyon, so the plan was to just run from home to the canyon, and then see how far up the canyon I could get. Lisa came with me on my run, except she just cruised along on her bike while I ran. I told her as we got started, that I was going to try to get to Canyon Glen, which is 2 or 3 miles into the canyon. I thought that was a realistic goal that would push me some. Boy was I wrong.

Not too long after beginning the run, I think my legs were a little shocked by this unfamiliar exertion. I get out and play sports fairly often, but I can't remember the last time I just went out and ran. So, I just trudged along and remembered why I like playing sports for exercise so much more than just running. I had gone about a mile, and I was not enjoying myself. I really did not want to run any more. But I could not give up that easily. I told myself I had to make it to next light (which wasn't too far away) before I could stop. So, I made it there (which is about 1.2 miles from home) and had to stop and recover a little. I had no desire to run anymore. So, I didn't even make it to the mouth of the canyon, and I wanted to go home.

After recuperating for a bit, I was able to convince my body to run back home. I had to stop once on the way back home, but I was able to run most of the way back. I did not enjoy it though, and it took a lot of mental strength to keep myself running. The whole time I was just thinking, "How did I get myself into this?" and "I think I need to tell them at work that I'm not doing it anymore."

I finally made it home and had to cool down for a while. Once I was done with the run, it actually felt good to have gotten out and exercised. It's so weird, because at that point I was no longer trying to think of a way to get out of the race. I just began thinking how I need to run more often, and get more in shape for it.

So, this week, I'll need to go running again. Right now I'm thinking that it'll be good. However, I'm pretty sure that soon after I begin, I'll once again be wondering what I'm doing running and how to get out of the race. Maybe some day (preferably before the race in September) I won't be hating life when I run more than 500 feet at a time.

Saturday Fun

This last Saturday was a lot of fun. First on the agenda was hiking Timpanogos Cave. The hike up to the cave isn't too long, but it is pretty steep. Since we've been married, Lisa has been doing a good job of fattening me up, so it felt good to get the exercise. There were cool views on the hike and then in the cave, there was cool stuff like all this:








For more photos of the hike and the cave, you can go here.

When we got home from the hike, my dad had DVR'ed the big soccer game between the U.S, and England. I really wanted to watch it, but we didn't have a whole lot of time. So, we ended up fast forwarding through all the boring parts where they're just kicking the ball around midfield, and then we would put it on regular speed when they got close to the goal. Man, that is the way to watch a soccer game. It wasn't nearly as boring as it usually is.

After that we had to make a quick Costco run, which is always most enjoyable because of all the great food we get there. Then it was off to the Orem Summerfest. As of late, carnival rides and I haven't gotten along too well, so the sight of all those spinning rides made me feel a little queasy. It was still a lot of fun being around it all. Lisa and I went on the Ferris Wheel, and that was a lot fun. Then we watched the parade with her family, which was lots of fun as well. Then later, we got to enjoy the fireworks from the deck of her parents' neighbors who weren't home. Good times. :) So, in all, it was a very enjoyable day indeed.

Random Tidbits

Ok, because it's been a while since Dan and I last posted, I figured I'd just post a little bit of everything that we've been up to lately.

Item number 1: Have any of ya'll ever heard of the Parade of Homes? I don't know if this is just a Utah thing or not but it's pretty cool. We've gone to 9 houses so far. Some are way too ornate, but a lot of them are really cool. There were a couple houses with theater rooms. They had surround sound and really comfortable chairs. Some of the master bedrooms were more like master suites. There was one walk in closet that was big enough to be a bedroom. One even had a little baby room in it. It was pretty cool. There was another house that had these two little kid rooms. One was a boys room and one was a girls room. Both rooms were huge and they had these lofts in them that the kids could climb up into. A lot of the houses had these little kids playhouses in the crawl spaces under the stairs. They had windows and doors...it was pretty cool.

Item number 2: SUMMERFEST!!! The Summerfest starts tomorrow!!! The Summerfest is a great way to start of the summer. It's one of the many city fairs that happen all over the county during the summer. There are carnival rides in the park, a boutique/craft fair, entertainment in the park, a parade, fireworks, and all sorts of other great activities. It's great fun. This year my nephew Kai is going to be in the baby contest. After he wins he'll get to ride on a parade in the float. :)

On Saturday, Dan and I are going to hike up to Timp Cave with his parents. I've never been there. I'm excited, it should be a lot of fun! I'll have to write more about that later...If I remember I'll actually take my camera and try to get some pictures.

Well...that's about all that I can think to write right now...right now it's time to go fold laundry!!! Oh the excitement of life. :)

Memorial Day Adventures

One of the great things about the jobs that Dan and I have is that we both get Memorial Day off so we have extra time to play. :) We started out by sleeping in and then having a late breakfast. I was so happy to sleep in...I had to be at work by 7am the Friday before, on Saturday we had to get up early to go to Logan, and on Sunday I had a presidency meeting at 7am. Sleeping in was glorious. :)

After breakfast, Dan and I went to go play tennis. Dan is very patient...I am not a good tennis player. I'm lucky if I can get the ball back over the net, though I seem to be able to get it over the fence without any problem. :) We played for about an hour, leaving sometime around 12:15pm. We got home, grabbed our bikes start out on our bike ride up to Vivian Park.

It's about a 7.5 mile bike ride that isn't too difficult at all, there are a couple steep hills but nothing too insane. So, Dan and I headed out on our adventure. It was Dan's first bike ride up that canyon and his second time riding his brand new bike that he got for his birthday. We made it up to Vivian Park without too many problems...I was super tired from attempting to play tennis so we rode up pretty slow...and I tried to shift gears too fast and too late on a hill and I knocked the chain off of the gears so I had to stop and fix that.

Anyway, we got up to Vivian and hung out there for a little bit and then headed back down the canyon. We hadn't even made it out of the marshes before I heard Dan yelling at me. I looked back and saw that he was a ways behind me and that he had stopped. I thought maybe he'd seen something cool that he wanted to show me so I headed back. There was something that he needed to show me alright, but it wasn't cool. His left pedal had fallen off of his bike. Keep in mind, we had just gotten this bike the Saturday before. We tried to screw it back in but to no avail. The threads inside were pretty stripped. Not cool.

So we started calling for help. Jesi came to our rescue and drove my Dad's big truck up the canyon and picked us up at Vivian Park. We were very grateful for the help. Now we have the oh so fun task of taking the bike back to the store and having them fix it.

The night did end well, we went to my parents house for a BBQ where we were entertained by Kai and by Sammy. Overall it was a good day.

Holy Guacamole

Unless you are a member of my immediate family, you probably don't know that guacamole and I have a bit of a sordid past. I'll spare you the details, but about 6 years ago this very weekend, I had some guacamole with some taquitos. No big deal right? Well, the next day I felt very ill. And the next day. And the next day after that. Let's just say for like a week after that I was spending lots of time in the bathroom. Ok, so maybe I lied about sparing you the details. :)

Anyway, ever since then I have not been able to touch the stuff. I always liked it before, but my body refused to let me eat it after this incident. I was even making some guacamole one time with some friends, and I had to stop and let someone else finish it. Well, I just want to declare that this last Thursday I ate guacamole for the first time in these last 6 years. I was with Lisa's family at Los Hermanos, and they had all the chips out before our meals came. They had to go with them salsa, cheese dip, and yes, guacamole. Lisa wanted me to try it. I dipped the chip in it, brought it to my mouth, but then I just couldn't put it in. I tried a second time and couldn't do it. I don't remember what it was, but something made me motivated to get it into my mouth. So, I dipped again, didn't let myself think about it at all, and hurried and put it in my mouth. Victory was mine! It did taste pretty good, but still, my stomach turned over a little as if asking me, "What do you think you're doing?! Don't you remember what happened the last time you did that?" I actually got one more chip with guacamole down, but that was enough for me. I still don't think I can eat more than very small quantities. In fact, as I've been writing this, my stomach has been turning a little. But I just wanted to boast of my feat to all the world. Who knows? Maybe in another 6 years I can try it again.

Plans gone wrong

Last night Dan and I planned to make pizza and root beer popsicles and to watch a movie for our Friday night date night. Well....things started out fine, but our date night quickly became plagued by unexpected problems. The first, and biggest problem, was the pizza. When making a pizza using a pizza stone and pizza paddle, you need to make sure that the pizza crust will slide off of the pizza paddle before you put the toppings onto the pizza crust. I did this. What I failed to account for was the fact that Dan and I loaded our pizza with so many toppings that it became far too heavy to simply slide of the paddle. It was stuck. We tried various methods to slide it off, but to no avail...so we ended up folding it nearly in half and just pushing the doughy, topping mess onto the pizza stone in the oven. Our once beautiful pizza pie turned into a calzone like pizza glob. (If anyone has a good pizza dough recipe, please share it!)

The next snag in the night was our root beer popsicles. Does anyone remember those popsicle mold things that you could pour juice into and stick in the freezer? Dan and I used one of our Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards to purchase a couple of these. Well freezing carbonation doesn't really work too well...the popsicles ended up being mostly air bubbles with pockets of flavor. They were pretty good, but not quite what we'd pictured... Finally, the movie we chose to watch (The Sandlot) began skipping towards end of the movie...where Small's mom starts to tell him about who Babe Ruth was. (I love that part!...well I love most of that movie.)

However, despite these setbacks, the night was actually a huge success. Our pizza glob mess actually tasted really, really good. We put the partially frozen root beer pops into some glasses and we smashed them up and added more root beer to make root beer slushies that were most excellent. :) And the movie was easily fixed. We just had to take it out and clean off the DVD and it worked just fine. Overall, it was an excellent evening!

Sunday - Time to Rest

As mentioned in our last post, this week as quite the busy week. Currently, Lisa is at a visiting teaching appointment, and after that she has some kind of meeting, but when she gets home from that, this wild week of craziness will be over! It'll be nice to relax for a bit for the rest of the day.

As you should know (because you read this blog so religiously :)), Lisa and I had the opportunity of speaking in church today. Our topic was basically 2 Nephi 25:26. So, yeah, that leaves things pretty broad. I always have a fear of under-preparing, and Lisa continually joked during the week about only taking 5 minutes, instead of the 15 she was supposed to. So, I had a bunch of stuff ready, just in case. Well, before we spoke, they had missionary moms talk about their sons on missions. We were both pleased they took up a good chunk of time. :) Then Lisa spoke and did a great job. As she spoke, I kept looking at the clock, and seeing how much less and less time I would have. So, thus began the task of figuring out the most important parts to speak about. There was a musical number after her, so when I got up to speak, I had about 5 minutes to speak. I didn't mind the short time, but it was difficult plucking pieces from what I had prepared. In the end, I think it worked out okay. We're both relieved to be past the stress of that, and, in theory, we shouldn't have to do that again for a while. :)

Busy, Busy, Busy

I think it's funny that the post that follows Too Much Time On My Hands is titled "Busy, Busy, Busy". But anyway, after not having much to write about for a while, Lisa and I have found ourselves very busy. This last Sunday we both received callings in our ward. Lisa was called to be the Primary secretary and I was called to be the Webelos den leader. Neither of us really know what we're doing, but that's kind of the point of callings, right? To grow in new areas? :) So, we're busy learning our new responsibilities for those, and there was actually a stake meeting tonight that we both attended for these new callings. (There's something funny that happened there, that will be the subject of a future post. ...Whenever we have time to post it. :)) Tomorrow night is the weekly den meeting, then Thursday is roundtable, and on Saturday there is a Primary activity. A very busy week indeed. And to top it all off, we have been asked to speak on Sunday. So, yeah, we are suddenly very very busy. And oh yeah, someday we're supposed to do thank you notes for our wedding gifts. ....Someday.....

Too Much Time On My Hands

So, now that Lisa and I have 9:00 church, we have a lot more time on Sundays than we used to. With all this extra time, I usually think it's good for us to post on here. I sat here trying to think of what to write about, and everything that came to mind seemed like it would be pretty boring. So instead, I decided to have a little nerdy fun. See below:

This is what nerds do for fun. Click here.

Wedding Pictures

We recently got copies of our wedding pictures! After posting to facebook and a couple of family websites, we are too lazy to post any on here. You can see them on facebook by going here. If you can't see them, then that probably means you're not our friend on there yet. Why aren't we friends yet? :) If you're just dying to see some, and you don't want to be our facebook friend (or you have nothing to do with facebook), let us know in the comments and we'll post some later. Enjoy!

One Month Anniversary!

Ok, so I know that that anniversaries are a yearly thing, and thus a "One Month Anniversary" doesn't really exist. But still, Lisa and I have been married for one very happy month!

So, apparently in the first month of marriage, everyone is supposed to ask you how you like married life. The first few times I would reply, "very good" and the like, but as time went on, I wanted to mix it up some and say, "it's terrible! I hate it so much!" I would just love to see the reactions and awkward pauses that would ensue from that. I don't think I could ever really pull that off though. Today at work someone asked, and I just about did it, but then at the last second I responded with a simple, "good." Finally, after work, someone asked me, and I said how I hated it so much. He, though, could, of course, tell that I was joking and laughed with me about it. So, I guess we'll just have to see if people still ask you that question into the 2nd month of marriage. And in case any of you are still wondering, we both like being married to each other very much. :)

A New Look

We decided to finally spice things up around here and put up a background. It took a little bit of time finding something we liked, but we think this works. We've also added a spot where you can join our Adventure Club (i.e. follow the blog). Hope you like the changes! :)

Spring Cleaning

Yesterday, Lisa and I had a most productive day. I've had a bunch of old junk lying around adding clutter for a long time. So, yesterday we borrowed her dad's truck and took a load of stuff down to DI. They took just about everything except for 2 computer monitors and an old TV. We really wanted to get rid of them, so we had to figure out the next plan. As we left DI, we realized that there were a couple of things in the cabin of the truck that we forgot to drop off at DI. So, we went to Savers and dropped off those things and asked if they would take the monitors or TV. They would not. :( I ended up calling my brother, because I knew he used to have a bunch of old computer junk. He suggested Best Buy, so we went to check that out. There, they charge you $10 to recycle it, but then give you a $10 gift card in return. However, they would only take 2 items. If we had done it right, we would have had one of us bring in 2, and then the other one of us would take in the other item. Oh well. We then tried Office Depot next door, and they charged $5 to recycle it. At this point, it was well worth the $5 to just be rid of it. It felt great and liberating to be rid of all that junk.

After all this we went on a bit of a shopping spree. We got a thing in the mail from Target that said we could get 10% off anything still left on our registry. So, we gathered up all the Target gift cards we got (Thanks everyone!!!) with a copy of our registry, and got all the stuff we still wanted. When it came time to pay for all the stuff, we started handing gift card after gift card to the person working the cash register. It was fun watching the total go down as she did it. In the end, we ended up owing $7.06. I think that's about as good as you can do. I was very proud of ourselves. :)

To end the day, we went to a most wonderful birthday party for a most wonderful friend of ours. We hope she had a good birthday.

So, we felt great about all that we were able to accomplish yesterday and to get rid of so much junk we had lying around. And then today at church we found out that the young women are looking for stuff for members to donate for a yard sale they are having as a fundraiser..... Oh well.....

My official tour of Hemet

For those of you who don't know, Dan and I had our reception in Hemet last Saturday. While we were down there, Dan gave me the official tour of Hemet and the surrounding areas. Below are some pictures from the totally awesome tour.

First, we drove by the house that Dan grew up in, though from what I've been told, it doesn't look much like it did when Dan was little.

Next, we drove through the Orange Groves. The Orange Groves were my favorite part of Hemet. I couldn't smell the citrus in the air, but they were really pretty and I enjoyed seeing them. Below are a few of my favorite pictures:

This is an overview of the Orange Groves. I like them!

This is a single Orange tree. :)

Dan showed me the spot in the Orange Groves where he ran out of gas one day on the way back from school. Then we went to the high school and Dan showed me where the field used to be. I got to see the Jr High and the Elementary schools too.

Then we drove around and saw the Stake Center and we eventually ended up at this memorial park in San Jacinto called, San Jacinto Veterans Memorial at Druding Park. They had something for most of the major branches of the military. It was pretty cool. Check it out.

This was for the army.

Here is the display for the Airforce. This propeller was from a B-17 "Flying Fortress", a four engine bomber flown during WWII.

This was for the Navy. They had a lighthouse for the Coast Guard. On the plaque for the Coast Guard it said that their motto is Semper Paratus, meaning Always Ready. I thought that was pretty cool.

Well, that about covers the tour of Hemet! It was cool to get to see where Dan grew up and to hear all the stories about the different things that happened there.

The Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we booked a hotel in Cedar City, and then hit some different parks down in that area. We had a most excellent time and had many adventures. I'll try to relate some of the more memorable ones.

Saturday
We already told you all about our adventure finding Costco. That was pretty much it for Saturday.

Sunday
Sunday we found a church close to the hotel to go to. When we got there, we were looking at the program, and it had upcoming birthdays on there. One of the names on there for that was Candace Togisala. Lisa has an aunt and uncle that are Togisalas. That's not a very common name, so we wondered if there was any relation. We looked around a bunch during sacrament meeting for any potential candidates. Well when Sunday School came, they introduced the teacher as Sister Togisala. We both looked at each other. So, Lisa talked to her before Relief Society, and it turns out she is married to the brother of Lisa's uncle Togisala. So, Lisa's dad's sister's husband's brother's wife taught Sunday School where we were. :) That was pretty cool to find a connection there.

Monday
Monday we headed down to Zion National Park to hike Observation Point. It was a pretty long hike, but at the end there is a great view.



Tuesday
Tuesday we went to Bryce Canyon. There was a bunch of snow there, so we couldn't do a whole lot of hiking, but there were still some great views there as well.





On the way back home from Bryce Canyon we decided to do some exploring in Red Canyon (which you drive through to get to Bryce Canyon). There were some really cool rock formations there, including The Camel:



Wednesday
Wednesday, we headed way down south to the Valley of Fire in Nevada. We went a different way than Lisa has gone before, so we were hoping to find it okay. Well, we were driving on this road for a while that seemed to be just taking us out to nowhere. We weren't sure if we were on the right road, and we didn't want to drive forever into the unknown. We decided that maybe we should just play it safe and turn around and go the way Lisa knew. It would take a long time, but at least we would get there. Well, we got to about here when we decided to turn around:

View Larger Map

Lisa was just about to flip the car around when she asked me if I saw that thing up the road on the right (It's hard to see in this image, but there was something up there). I saw it and neither of us knew what it was. We decided to go up a little further to investigate. It turned out to be the sign for entering the Lake Mead National Recreational Area. That was on the path of where we needed to be, so we decided to keep going. Sure enough, a little while later, we saw a sign to turn into the Valle of Fire. We made it! We figured it probably would have cost us around 2 hours to have turned around and gone the other way. We were very grateful we made it without having to turn around. At the park we got to see cool rock formations like Elephant Rock



We also got to see lots of petroglyphs





And there were even these cool color contrasts





It was supposed to rain while we were down there, but it did not. It was overcast all day, but no rain. Of course, this, the overcast day, was the only day we wore sunscreen.

Thursday
Thursday we woke up to tons of snow.



We figured it was about 9 inches. We couldn't find the snow brush thing, so I got to clean it all off with a frisbee. Well, then it was back down to Zion National Park for lots of fun stuff. We first hiked the Emerald Pools and saw cool waterfalls



This was our final destination on that hike:



After that we made a quick stop at The Court of the Patriarchs



Bonus points for whoever can name them. After that we drove up Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway. I had only done that once before, so it was really cool to see everything on that drive, like The Great Arch



On the way back from that drive we took a short hike to the canyon overlook right above the Great Arch. We saw some bighorn sheep on that hike, and it had another great view at the end



Friday
Friday we headed down to St. George and went to the temple there. That was really cool. Both of us just kind of wanted to get home at that point so no pictures there. :)


And that was our most awesome honeymoon. To look at many more photos from our honeymoon, you can go here. We had lots of fun. Try not to be too jealous. :)

Wedding Slide Show

We apologize for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks. We have been a little busy getting married and going on a honeymoon and all that. :) The adventures from our tour of a selection of the National Parks will be coming soon. In the meantime, here is the video that was playing at the reception in case you missed it. Enjoy! :)

We're Married!!!

As of 11:00 am yesterday, Lisa and I are officially married!!! This makes us both very happy. The Countdown to the right has now been replaced with a Countup, in case you ever wonder how long we've been married. :)

Today we already had the first adventure of our honeymoon. We are staying in Cedar City, but we decided that today we would go down to St. George and get some In-N-Out and then pick up some things we would need from Costco. We knew there was a Costco down there, but we forgot to look up where it is before leaving. We decided that we would "figure it out" when we got there. So we we stopped by In-N-Out, but there was a HUGE line. We got there during the lunch rush. So, we decided we would have other opportunities to stop by there, and we would just go to Costco, and not worry about In-N-Out for the time being.

Lisa called 411 to get the phone number to Costco, and then used that number to try to figure out where it was. She got a recording and got to the option that has the address. I wrote it down - 835 N 3050 E, St. George. So, we now had an address, but we still didn't know how to get there. On the phone there was then an option for getting directions, so she chose that option. It said, "From 3050 East, turn right." And that was it. Real helpful.... So, we set out hoping the grid system would lead us to our destination. It was a little difficult at first, since we were on a street that wasn't a number, and all the streets we passed weren't numbers. Eventually we found that we needed to turn east, and so we we headed east for a while. A little while later we found 3050 E so we headed north and figured we would run into Costco. After driving a little longer we found it, and were very happy to get our things there. As we were leaving, we decided to continue north on 3050 E since we both had a sneaking suspicion we would connect back to where started. Sure enough, not even a block later, we spotted In-N-Out. We went completely out of the way to get there. To get to Costco from that In-N-Out, Google suggests the following:



View Larger Map



We, however, went this way:


View Larger Map



What can I say? We like the scenic routes. :)