This past Saturday night my friend Jenny and I had an Easter party for all of our friends. We started it out with an Easter egg hunt outside - you're never too old for that. Then we all dyed eggs and voted on the best ones. Chad made a "Charlie Brown" egg which he was quite proud of. His egg made it into the semi-final round for best decorated egg. We also had an "egg-smashing" tournament (Jenny's family tradition) where we counted to three and hit eggs together and the person with the egg with the most cracks was out. We kept going until 1 person was left. Chad made it pretty far in this contest too. Here is a video of when he finally got out. We had fun hanging out with all of our friends and eating lots of chocolate. Chad decided to be the Easter Bunny for the two of us this year. He hid plastic, candy-filled eggs for me to find when I woke up Sunday morning. He did a good job. It was fun.
Here is a video of Chad competing in the egg smashing contest.
Anyone who reads or follows the news at all will undoubtedly have heard that Obama wants to relax some of the U.S.'s policies with Cuba. I believe he right now just wants to relax the rules for Cuban American families and their visiting rights. I believe he plans on relaxing more than just that though in the months and years to come. I know many have speculated that by the end of his first term he will have restored all diplomatic relations with Cuba and allow normal trade. According to a poll released today by CNN, 7 out of 10 Americans are in favor of this normalization of relations with Cuba. There are a lot of people in the news and in Congress though that are very unhappy with the prospect of normalizing relations with Cuba. I know Senator Mel Martinez of Florida is a Cuban American and is very opposed to any of this. There are other congressmen and politicians that are also very against this. From what I can gather, and I have been trying very hard to understand this situation, many Cuban Americans (and a vocal minority of politicians, mostly Cuban Americans) are opposed to this because Cuba is a Communist regime and is clearly guilty of gross human rights violations. According to the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, the U.S. continues its embargo against Cuba because of "human rights" and "democratic values." Many Cubans have been jailed unjustly and are treated poorly, probably worse than I can even imagine. Cubans are not free to pursue their interests. You can go to jail for five years for trying to connect to the internet. The organization Reporters Without Borders ranked Cuba the second biggest prison for reporters, second only to none other than....you guessed it...China. I have only scratched the surface of the human rights violations in Cuba and have only barely begun describing its oppressive communist government. But the point of this blog is not to rant against Cuba, it is to ask for someone to please explain to me why we do not hold countries like China to the same standard. Why do we not have an embargo agasint China? Why didn't we boycott the Olympics when they refused to hold up their end of the bargain and stop committing human rights violations? Let me briefly remind anyone reading this blog about how horrible China's oppressive communist government is. First off, many organizations including the U.S. State Department have documented China's human rights violations. For decades China has had a 'one child policy' which has resulted in abortions and infanticide. There is an outrageously unbalanced proportion between males and females in China because the one child policy often times leads the Chinese women to abort the baby if it is not a boy. I cannot even begin to describe how much this disgusts me. China leads the world in executions per year. In 2005, a member of the Chinese Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year. Of course there is not religious freedom. Tax fraud and 67 other crimes are punishable by death in China. You could fill volumes writing about the treatment of rural and factory workers. I will leave it at that though. So why does the U.S. have this completely rigid economic and diplomatic policy with Cuba but nothing of the sort with China. Not only do we do business with China, they practically own us. I am barely exaggerating. China owns 24.07% of our debt which is 739.6 billion dollars. The U.S. would go bankrupt if China did not continue to buy our debt and give us loans. In addition to the national debt, we do import from China. I am guessing most things in my apartment are from China since I do most of my shopping at retail stores. Don't get me wrong, I like the cheap prices at the retail stores, I wouldn't want to change that, I am just trying to illustrate the inconsistency of trading and doing business with China but not Cuba. Both countries are oppressive and guilty of human rights violations. From what I can gather it appears that China is worse. If nothing else China certainly is performing the human rights violations on a much larger scale because of how big of a country they are. Our secretary of state routinely visits China, we do business with them, they own a quarter of our debt and could call on it at any time, we participated in the olympics there, etc etc etc....but we will not have even trade with Cuba or normalize relations? I am genuinely asking for someone to explain to me why. I have found this topic to be very interesting but I still have not found any satisfying answers. The only answers I have found is that 1. Cuba is so close to the US that it is embarrassing that they wont let us influence or change them. 2. Many Cuban Americans living in the U.S. have negative feelings (for obvious reasons) towards Cuba and do not want to normalize relations with Cuba because they hate Cuba so much. This small but vocal minority of Americans located mostly in Florida are represented in Congress by people who keep up the fight to not normalize relations with Cuba to satisfy their constituents, which is their job. 3. We cannot afford to not do business with China but we can hold out (on principle?) on Cuba? That's about the worst reason I can think of...This has been a very long blog and has been somewhat political. I don't like to write about politics in our blog but this topic is something I am genuinely looking for answers to so I thought I'd open it up to others.
One of my really good friends started a weekly "Thankful Thursday" post on her blog and I thought it was a great idea. Thanks Claire!
This week I'm thankful for:
1. An amazing husband who not only regularly volunteers to help me make dinner and do the dishes, but even had a yummy dinner waiting for me when I got home from work today!
2. The warm weather is coming back and it was so sunny today!
3. The old man who was a patient in my office today who had made everyone's day and had everyone happy by the time he left (a nice change from lots of our regular patients)!
4. The good friends we have here to celebrate Easter with!
I just found out about this today after doing some reading, it is really too funny or ironic or coincidental or scary or something. From the years 1990 to 2000, the president of Peru (where I served my mission) was named Alberto Fujimori. Like most Peruvian Presidents, he had many scandals and severe problems during his presidency. During his presidency, he performed a coup on his own country's congress to get rid of opposition, he went through a scathing bitter divorce and he consequently named his eldest daughter 'First Lady,' through changes in the constitution and some finagling with the courts he ran for and won a third term as president even though the constitution was only allowed two terms, and he was essentially exiled from the country during his third term when the legislature performed a vote of no confidence while he was abroad in Brunei (so he just never went home and insted moved to Tokyo where he had dual citizenship). He never tried to go back to Peru until 2005 when for some narcissistic reason he thought he might have a shot at the upcoming presidential election. So he flew in to South America thorugh Chile, I suppose in an effort to 'test the waters' of his political viability (he couldn't just go straight to Peru because there were all kinds of warrants out for his arrest for all kinds of mony embezzlement i think). To make a long story short, he was convicted today of human rights violations from acts committed during his presidecny and sentenced to 25 years. Oh yeah I should mention one more thing...his slogan in 1990 was 'Change,' and he won the presidency primarily out of disgust with the then current preisdent Alan Garcia. You could say it was something of a referendum on the Garcia presidencia (haha, I really typed that on accident-I mean presidency). Sound familiar? Ironically, there was controversy over whether Fujimori was born in Peru Japan. There were conflicting stories and reports from the embassies and stuff like that. While I was in Peru a lot of people beleived he was not actually born in Peru and therefore would not constiutionally be eligible to be president (just like in the U.S.). Alright here is where it actually gets funny: Alan Garcia was actually able to win back the presidency after all the Fujimori scandal and Fujimori eventually leaving the country (Garcia is currently the president). So if this pattern hold true for our country, which it would seem it could because of all the parallel characteristics, Geroge W. Bush will run for and win back the White House in 2016 after Barack Obama has been in for two and possibly part of a third term. OK I am just kidding and I don't think there is actually any way that could ever happen in a million years, but I thought it would be funny to wright about.
Despite the fact that it snowed and rained all day today here in Syracuse, the weather is getting much warmer generally speaking. Most of the days are warm enough now to want to spend time outside and perhaps even wear shorts and sandals occasionally. To emphasize just how warm it is now, I actually had to sleep with the fan on me the whole night last night. Our apartment stays pretty warm though. Some of our friends here in Syracuse cannot believe that we never used the heater in our apartment. We absorbed a lot heat from the people below and to the sides of our apartment...kind of like when we lived in Utah. That reminds me of a funny story from when we lived in Utah. One night in the middle of the winter it was so hot in our apartment (again, from all the heat we absorbed from our neighbors. we had people above, below, and on both sides). I literally could not sleep. I think it was like 1 or two in the morning and I was going to go to Wal-Mart to buy a fan but Michelle said I just needed to tough it out for the night. It was miserable. Keep in mind that this is the middle of the winter, it was probably like 10 degrees outside in the middle of the night. So to cool off and be able to fall asleep I opened our window and laid down on the ground up against the wall and let the cold air blow on me. Somehow Michelle and I always end up in apartments that have quirky little things about them. Well, we have only lived in two so far since we have been married but so far they have all had funny characteristics.
I started a rape aggression defense (self-defense for women) class on Tuesday. It is once a week for three hours a night and there are 4 nights. Several of my friends had taken it and said good things about it, and it was free so I thought I would try it. I love it! The point of the class is to teach you some skills to help you get away from a dangerous situation - just get in a few good hits and run as soon as your attacker is down or caught off guard. It is a lot of fun and very educational. Tuesday was my first class. There are only 6 girls in the class and three teachers so we get a lot of help and practice. We learned 3 different "defense" stances, 4 kinds of strikes, 3 different kicks, and 2 blocks. We practiced blocking as the instructors tried to hit us (with pads). It was a little intimidating at first, but they started out slow and I did well. We practiced all our kicks and strikes on pads that they were holding. I went home with red, swollen, and cracked knuckles - worth it though. We also learned that it is very important to be vocal. We have to yell "No!" every time we hit, kick, block, etc. Yelling is important because it attracts attention, warns your attacker, and makes it easier for you to keep breathing in such an intense situation. At the end of the class one of our instructors is going to wear a padded suit and helmet and actually attack us in several different scenarios. We will use what we learned to try to fight him off and get away. This will be a really good practice and probably kind of scary. My friends said you adrenaline really kicks in when he rushes to attack you and you just start doing what you learned and fighting back. It's a great class so far and I would recommend it to anyone. 1 out of 3 women in this country are raped, so it never hurts to be prepared. Hopefully though I will never need to use any of this. The picture on the left is of the simulation on the last day of class - the full body black suit is what the attacker will be wearing (or something similar). I'll get to wear the helmet, knee pads, and gloves.
Michelle was a reading a book and it said how much a full-time mother would earn in a year if that were a paid position. In other words, if you added up the hours per week that a mom works and then broke down everything she does into certain types of jobs, you could figure out what that work would be worth in today's market. The book she was reading only said what the salary would be, but I went online and found out a little bit more about how they figured the salary out. First off, the studies that have been performed show that a full-time mom works 92 hours a week. That is a little over 13 hours a day. I suppose that sounds correct. It could be more than that, but i guess a mom gets to sleep and do some of her own personal business while just taking the kids with her. That number could definitely be debated but that is what the studies show. So 92 hours a week is 40 hours at regular pay and 52 hours of over time at pay and a half (by today's work laws and standards). The studies also break down the work that a mom does into different categories. There is of course meal-preparer, school tutor, sports instructor, day care, counselor, laundry, nurse, drives the kids places, wakes up and comforts, and a whole list of other things. I can't remember what they called all the jobs that a mom does but they are all positions that deserve a lot of money. The grand total of what a mother's salary would be (if it were a paid position) is about $135,000. That is a lot of money. That is more than I will probably ever make. That figure is probably low too because I would imagine there are things you just can't put a dollar figure on like how much parents worry and stress and all that. Maybe there should be hazard pay too, i don't know. Let me do some quick math and see what the hourly rate would be...ok its like 22 dollars an hour for the first 40 hours a week and then 33 dollars an hour then next 52 hours per week (overtime). I guess that sounds about right. I thought this was really interesting; but obviously there is nobody you could pay any amount of money to that would be as good of a mother as you would be.
Our apartment feels a bit emptier right now than it did 15 minutes ago. That is because we just sold our TV to someone by posting it for sale on Craig's List. Michelle and I are quite proud of the fact that we got $100 for the TV. I think we did well and the person who bought it did well because the TV, despite being a 5 year old tube tv (that means it is one of the huge ones and goes back far behind the screen) it was in perfect condition and I included a remote control, an antenna that i bought, and the digital converter box that i bought. As some of you may know, Michelle and I have set a lofty goal to be able to move from Syracuse to wherever it is we go without having to mail or ship anything. In other words, we need to sell or donate everything that we can't fit in my little car. We think we can achieve our goal by starting early. A few months ago I sold my computer desk through craig's list, we have thus far returned 2 of our 4 air filters to Wal-Mart (who is merciful enough to us poor college students to let us return them...they are expensive), and today we sold our TV. You may be wondering why we want to sell all our things. The answer is complicated. Basically, the stuff we have here is not really our nice things. We have a nice bed and some nice furniture that we left in Utah when we moved here. We did bring and send some things out here like the TV but most of our furniture and stuff that we have out here we have obtained out here. We got most of it for free or for pretty cheap from members of our ward. We decided that for the price it would cost to ship things somewhere, we would be better off just selling everything here and getting our stuff back from Utah and then buying/finding whatever we still need. But this brings me to my next point: we don't know where we are going to go. We want to be able to be mobile in case I get a job offer somewhere and we need to move out quick (and I don't think any employer is going to pay for us to move out anywhere). Also, we are considering just moving to one of our family's houses or moving back to Utah or something but that may not be permanent either. We are anxious to leave Syracuse and we might move somewhere where we would be closer to friends and family even if I don't have a job there. So if we did do that, I would obvisouly still be looking for a job and if i did find one we would need to move again. So you can see why we don't want to be paying to move all our stuff around all these times when we are so uncertain of where we might end up. And that's not even mentioning how huge of a hassle it is to box things up, ge them to a Fed Ex and pick them up wherever you sent them. I think that pretty much covers it. Oh yeah...if anyone out there is in the market for a nice sturdy table with 4 matching chairs, a nice sturdy entetainment center, a couch with a nice couch cover, a bed with frame and box springs, or any number of pieces of furniture, we have or will have that for sale...
BYU just lost their first round match. It was hard to watch. BYU got destroyed out on the court. Right from the first few minutes of the game until the very end they were down by double digits for most of the entire game. Oh well. I still have the Syracuse Orange to root for. They will for sure get past a couple rounds at least. They are a three seed so they should have an easier time until the sweet 16.
March Madness starts tomorrow. This is one of the coolest sporting events/playoffs in the country. So many teams, so much to keep track of, filling out your bracket, and seeing how well you did compared to your friends. Its a lot of fun. I have UNC winning it all. I read this evening that Obama had UNC winning it too. I filled out mine before i read that though. I am going to get Michelle to fill one out too and we will post ours up here so everyone can see and compare. BYU plays at 12:30 and it will be televised on CBS. If they are not showing it on CBS because of other games that are more relevant to the region we live in, the BYU game can be wathced in its entirety on CBS.com. I picked BYU to win their first round...they are not getting to the sweet 16 though.
I decided I don't want to watch the addictive TV shows until they are done and all the seasons are out on DVD. One such show that I heard was really amazing and is done is The West Wing. Luckily Michelle and I have some friends that own the entire series and have been letting us borrow all of the seasons a couple at a time. Michelle and I watched the first few seasons together in their entirety but since I am on spring break right now I have had a lot more free time than her and have watched a lot without her. I have gotten pretty addicted to the show, it is really enterntaining. It is about the drama and tough choices that the president and his staff that work in the West Wing of the White House go through ona daily basis. It took me a while to get really into the show because it is more of an intellectual show than an action-packed show like 24 or a mystery like Lost. Its totally different than those shows. I have never worked in the White House so I really can't say for sure, but I feel like the show is realistic and based off of things that have and could happen. I know they have past White House assistants and even one of President Clinton's Press Secretaries working as consultants to help make the show realistic. A lot of stuff on the show goes over my head because I am not an expert on US foregin policy and there is a surprisingly large amount of US history stuff I don't know what they're talking about. Having sid that though I feel like I can understand a lot of what's going on because I have a bachelor's degree in Political Science and am on my way to a Master's Degree in Public Administration. One cool thing about the show is that they have mentioned the Maxwell School (the number one ranked MPA school in the country and where I happen to be attending) three times. Sometimes when somebody is visiting the White House to advise the President or something like that they introduce the person and they say he or she is a professor at or earned a degree from the Maxwell School. One of the characters on the show, Josh, is said to be based off of Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff. Josh is a really nice guy though, and Emanuel I thought has a reputation of being more like a pitbull than a nice guy. So the whole time watching the show I haven't really known what they are basing that off of. In one episode everyone is talking about how before Josh worked at the White House he had sent some political rival a dead fish or something like that. I know that that is something that Emanuel did actually do in real life. That is the only thing I can think of that seems like a clear similarity. Maybe people just base the copmarison off of that and Josh wasn't actually based off of Emanuel.
Chad and I have had a fun Valentine's Day so far. Last night we went to a church Valentine's dinner and dance. It was a lot fun. Dinner was great and there was a live band and dancing. I love to swing dance, so I have really been wanting Chad to learn too. He keeps insisting that he can't do it, but last night he let me teach him and he did great! He caught on quickly and it was a lot of fun! Today we went to Olive Garden for lunch. It is one of our favorite restaurants. Chad also got me the coolest valentine's day present. It is the book, The Joseph Smith Papers. If you haven't heard of it is a a compilation of all of the journal entries, letters, etc. (completely unfiltered - even his errors and the things he started crossing out are in there) that Joseph Smith has written from 1832-1839. They are going to make around 30 volumes total,which will include everything he has ever written. I am really excited to read it. It will be neat to learn so much about Joseph Smith and what he was really like.
I am currently reading Moby Dick. After Michelle and I finished the Harry Potter series, Moby Dick was next on the list. The reason I wanted to read it is because it President Obama's favorite book. Don't worry, I'm not trying to do everything he does or be just like him; I just figured it would be a good book if it is our president's favorite. Well...what can i say...the book is sloooow...and loooong. It is very hard to get through. I don't think there could be a bigger contrast between two books that there is between Harry Potter and Moby Dick. The book goes on and on about stuff that i feel like it didn't even need to be mentioned. Very thorough style. Very thick, hard to get through. I recently finished a chapter called 'The Sermon.' It was about a preacher's sermon. The preacher talked a lot about Jonah and his story from the Old Testament. Even though the book is slow, and honstly I am not into it at all so far, I did actually feel moved by the parts of the preacher's sermon. So far i could summarize the book in a couple sentences: Ishmael meets and makes an unlikely friend in Queequeg the canibal (literally). They meander through a port city over the weekend and do things like go to a sermon. Its rough so far, i read it to help me fall asleep. This is not how i envisioned the book. I thought it would be the next best thing other than actually sailing in person. There are a few insightful things here and there, and a lot of philosophical inward-reflection narrative stuff that is interesting...but how Obama even got through the book is beyond me. It must have special significance to him in some way. I'm not sure if i will finish it. I'm ready for some action out on the ocean with the whale and stuff. Has anybody out there actually read the unabridged book from cover to cover? Was it worth it? One thing i will say though is that it is kind of like going back in time when you read a book over 150 years old and see how different they talked and the vocabulary they used (many words I have not only no idea what they mean but have never even heard of before). Its also like you are there in New England during that time and are learning what life was like. Apparently it was not uncommon for a man to share a bed with another man at a hotel if there was not any rooms or beds left. Weird little things like that are interesting.
Michelle and I were just eating dinner with the front door open because we accidentally set our oven on fire and lots of smoke and all the smoke-detectors went off (at least we know they work now). And suddenly I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to my side and there was a cat that had just walked into our house. Ironically I sometimes make cat noises and tell Michelle that there is a cat in our house, but this time when I said "Hey! There's a cat!" she could tell i was being serious. It was a nice friendly cat. A little too friendly as it seemed intent on just going into our bedroom and doing whatever it wanted. Below is a video of it. And now about that fire in the oven. Michelle and I were playing phase ten (I ended up winning, which puts me on a three game winning streak), and suddenly i noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look and there was a pretty large fire in the oven. We were making two meat loaves (so that I could eat leftovers for lunch for a couple days. Yes, I love meat loaf enough to ask Michelle to make enough to last me a few days worth of leftovers). The grease started spilling out onto the oven bottom but we didn't think anything of it until somehow it started a fire. I said, "Oh! Fire!" We both kind of didn't know what to do. The first thing I did was turn off the oven and opened the oven to do something. But then Michelle said to close the oven because that oxygen makes the fire worse. I closed the oven and was saying, "What do we do? What do we do?" When I finally remembered you need flour on a grease/oil fire. I actually didn't know where the flour was so I told Michelle to get it (evidently i don't cook very much these days). Luckily by the time this all happened and Michelle got the flour out, the fire pretty much sizzled itself out. At that point we just had to figure out how to turn off all the smoke detectors. Also luckily the meat loaf was ok. As a matter of fact I am so full of meat loaf right now I feel a little sick. But i will be ready for more meat loaf tomorrow.
I am sure many of you have heard that quote supposedly from Albert Einstein about James Talmage being the smartest man alive being a genius. There are a few variations in how the quote goes, but essentially the story goes something like this: Einstein was asked how it felt to be the smartest man in the world, and he answered, "Ask James Talmage." I have heard/read another version that was 'how it felt to be the world's greatest mathematician.' At any rate, I have always thought this was such a cool quote because I have read or at least almost entirely read two of Talmage's books: Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ. Anyone who has read any part of those books will know that he was indeed a genius. I can't even begin to describe how smart i could tell he was just by reading his book. I know that is not something you usually say about someone just from having read a book that person wrote, but let me tell you, it is so true in Talmage's case. I am sure anyone reading this blog who has also read his work would agree. Anyways, I decided to find out when and where that quote was from last night, and to my dismay, it would appear that it may not have ever actually happened. I did a lot of researching on people's blogs that go to BYU that have tried to find out where the quote comes from and the general consensus is that it probably never happened. Apparently someone was told the whole story about that quote while getting a golf cart tour at BYU and emailed the school to find out where that could be substantiated, and he got an email from then-president Bateman saying it could not be substantiated. I also read about how unlikely it would be that the two even knew each other. I guess if you do the math and figure out the logistics of how old they were, where Talmage worked while Einstein was in the U.S. and what Talmage's profession was at the University he worked at in Utah etc. it is pretty unlikely that they could have known each other well enough for this story to have happened. And also of course i could't find the quote written in any book or paper. Oh well, i guess it was just one of those myths that starts as something little and gets perpetuated until, in this case, people are talking about it all over the place. Not that any of this matters in any way, it is just interesting. I don't think there is ay doubt thoght that James Talmage was indeed a genius, just read a chapter from any of his books if you don't beleive me.
I finally got a much needed haircut. I just felt like it was time. Here are some pictures of the process. I got my haircut at our friends Dan and Jenny's house. Jenny and Michelle cut it (Jenny actually taught Michelle how to cut hair while doing it). I think it turned out great! One of the best haircuts I have ever had I would say.
I once had a roommate (before I got married) who told me he had never known anyone who could have a completely different hair style every moth if he wanted to. I think that that is attributed to the fact that my hair grows very abnormally fast. I am ging to cut it soon very short, but it will be long again befre ou know iy. These are a couple pictures of my hair when it was blonde and when it was black. I think it looked good both ways. Michelle likes it more just regular. I will never change the color again, i am too old for that now. But it is fun to look at the pictures.
So i was going to put a different picture on our blog, but then I stumbled upon some mission pictures that Michelle has on her laptop. Neither of us have any idea how these pictures got on her computer. There is not really any explanation, most of them were not even taken with a digital camera ( I did not have a digital camera on my mission). In addition to that, I have never scanned in any pictures from my mission. Maybe my parents scanned them onto a computer and some point in time and they somehow wound up on Michelle's computer. This is a newer computer though...I can't think of how they got here. I am stumped, they are the most recent picture download to her computer. We are both totally confused how these pictures exist on her laptop. Someone must have hacked on to her computer and given us these pictures. Everyone can enjoy them now though. My favorite is the one with the monkey. I wanted a pet monkey after I met the lady in Cuzco who had that monkey as a pet. The picture of me just standing up against a wall in a room is the picture i used to send in the First Presidency to get my mission call. Neat, huh?
Michelle and I read the final Harry Potter book for about 10 hours yesterday and finished at around 1:00 am (so i guess that means we actually finished it today). Obviously, as evidenced by reading it all day yesterday, we enjoyed it a lot. We read all 7 books in about 2 months. I would say that's pretty quick since they get pretty long after the third book. I feel weird now that there is nothing left to read in the series. There will never be a new HP book...Its an odd feeling. I had a feeling that Snape was either not bad or would become good again. I believed whole-heartedly that Dudley would turn out to be a wizard. I was surprised and disappointed that the final book did not address that. Dudley was nice to Harry at the begining of this book and I was sure the book would say something about that. Just like everyone always reccomended them to us, we recomend the books to anybody. Really, we think that anybody would enjoy reading them. The last 3 are excellent, the first 4 are so so. You've got to read them all though in order. Its worth reading them all to get to the last ones. Before I had finished the series, I thought maybe there would be someway that the possibility for another book could remain open. I realize now though that that is not possible. JK Rowling wraps up the series really well. There is really nothing left to write about, well, not another entire book at least.
I have the best husband ever! Yesterday morning he got up early with me before I had to go to work to make me a homemade egg, bacon, and cheese mcmuffin. He had stayed up late the night before and didn't have school until the afternoon so he could have slept in late and was probably really tired. But instead of sleeping, he got up and made me a very yummy breakfast! He is constantly sacrificing of himself to do nice things for me and let me know that he loves me. It's just one of the many many reasons I love him so much. Thanks Chad!
It has been a couple weeks since the last time I wrote. Since we got home from Texas, Michelle and I have accomplished a lot. I recently finished a week long class on Skillful Group Development. It was 6 hours a day for 6 days straight. I got as whole classes out of the way though and now that the real semester has started I only have to take 3 classes. I am planning on focusing on the job-search with my free time. I have also applied to two city management fellowships (its like a rotational internship for one or two years) since we got back. Meanwhile, Michelle has been working hard day in and day out at her job at the doctor's office. We are on the last Harry Potter book. The sixth book was really good. Michelle and I are really into the series. It will be weird when we finish the last book. When we first started it seemed like there were so many books and they were all so long it didn't seem like we would ever actually finish. That's all i can think of writing right now.
Michelle and I are back at home in Syracuse. We drove all the way from Houston, TX in one straight shot and got home a couple hours ago. We left yesterday i think at like 10 and got home today at a little after 1. We lost an hour coming home but gained an hour going there. Of course, we drove out there too. We drove out there also in one straight shot, we left on Dec 23 at 4:30 and got to my family's house on Christmas Eve and 6 or something. It was totally worth it. We got to be there for a week and a half and the drive was cheap. Once we got to states like Alabama, Kentucky, etc. gas was under $1.50. Often times it was only $15.00 to fill up my gas tank. My car is little and gets great gas mileage. The entire round trip (there and back) probably only cost about 150 or 160 dollars. That is for two people of course. That is about a third of the cost it would have been for one of us to fly there. It was a tough road trip though. It certainly wasn't easy though. Luckily I have some weird ability to drive for extremely long amounts of time without getting tired or anything. One the way down when we left i drove for something like 12 or 13 hours straight before Michelle drove and i napped a little. We switched off after that, one of us sleeping while the other drove. That is more or less the pattern we took driving back up as well. Each trip was about 24 hours of driving time, i probably drove three quarters of the time. That is not to say that Michelle wasn't willing to drive more, it is just that I am for some reason really good at driving at night and for long amounts of time. Listening to Harry Potter helped too. We have all the books unabridged on my ipod which is connected to my car stereo. We listened to about half of book number 5 (which is an unbelievable 900 pages long....that book just would not end, it ended up being our favorite so far though) and a good chunk of number 6 (which thankfully is only 600 pages or so and is also very good). I think we are making excellent time on getting through the entire HP series. I think we started the first one only a month ago or so, there is a post on here that talks about it. We had a blast in Texas. The weather was SOOOO nice. As we were driving down South the ice and snow melted off our car and i thought that was so cool. It was in the 70's there. Sunny, warm, very enjoyable. We had a great time staying up late with my fmaily and then sleeping in as we had no responsibilites! It was so fun to be with my family. Andrew is leaving on his mission in a month or so so this was really important to spend time with him. We watched the Bowl Games with my family (way to go Utah, that was amazing) and went to the movies and went out to eat. It was great to be able to wake up on Christmas morning and be with my family and open up presents with all of them. Michelle and I got some nice presents on Christmas and we had already received some nice presents from Michelle's family as well in the mail here at Syracuse. We feel very fortunate to have such amazing families! One interesting thing was one the way back for probably around 100 miles in Ohio we hit the craziest rain storm I have ever driven in. It was coming down so hard it sounded like golf balls hitting the car. Near zero visibility and there was no way Michelle could sleep through it. We had to yell just to be able to hear each other. Obviously that slowed us down for a while. It was so weird when we got out of the sotrm though, it was not gradual at all it was just pouring one second and the next second it was completely gone, no rain whatosever. That surprised me. I had to pause Harry Potter becuase I couldn't hear it. Anyways, it is back to reality now. Michelle has to got to work tomorrow and I have a class that starts tomorrow and is 6 hours a day for 6 days (Monday through Saturday). I know that sounds horrible but it is well worth getting an entire class out of the way before the real semester starts next week. I will only have three classes in the Spring semester due to having taken 5 classes last semester and taking this compressed class over the break that starts tomorrow. After driving for 24 hours straight Michlle and I could so easilly drive for 5 or 10 hours now. I can't beleive I used to divide a road trip from CA to UT by staying the night in Vegas. I could do that whole trip without even thinking twice. I could drive from UT to CA just to eat at In N Out and then turn around and drive back, JK, I wouldn't do that, but ten hours from UT to CA seems like so little after what we just did. We feel like we could easilly take some mini road trips to Massachusets or Canada or eve do those things as just a day trip. Anyways, Michelle and I had a great holiday break and we are sad it is over but we are grateful we got to do it.
I'm a little behind on the pictures I've been meaning to put up here forever. The first couple are from when we first got our Christmas tree (that adventure explained in an earlier post). You can see part 2 of that adventure here. The tree was huge and after getting it into our apartment we realized we needed to trim it. It was freezing outside and we had already carried the tree up the stairs and shoved it through the door, so we just trimmed it in our front room with the only tool we had - a large kitchen knife. It made a huge mess, but I loved the strong smell of fresh pine. These pictures are of before, during, and after trimming and decorating. We also had fun making Christmas sugar cookies that week. The first couple we decorated were cute and fancy, but then we got tired of decorating and just wanted to eat them so the rest were pretty simple.
This morning, a few minutes after Michelle said goodbye to me to go to work, she came back in to our room and said the car wouldn't start. This was not a complete shock because the car has been having a little bit of trouble starting for a few weeks, especially in the morning when it is really cold. In addition to this, the car battery has been dying if we have the lights or radio on for even just a couple minutes without the engine running. Despite these warning signs over the last few weeks or couple of months, Michelle and I had no idea that the battery might be just about out of juice. We called a family from our ward who lives in our apartment complex and they came and jump started the battery for us (thanks again Josh and Christina!). I dropped Michelle off at work and then went to an auto shop. They said they couldn't even start the car in the auto bay and that the battery was completely wasted, nothing left. So we got a new battery, everything is fine now. Hopefully there isn't anything else wrong with the car when we wake up tomorrow morning.
I get to sleep in till as late as i want these days, no school for the time being because of the Christmas break in between semesters. After I said goodbye to Michelle yesterday morning though before she went to work and had fallen back asleep, Michelle called me because she had a flat tire. I gave her Geiko's phone number (our insurance provider) and they arranged to have a tow truck come and get her. We are glad our insurance covers that. We kept thinking of better places though that the tow truck could take her. First we thought back home, then Michelle thought of a tire store. Since our tires are under warranty at Pep Boys, i got their address and Michelle called Geiko and we made the arrangements for her to be towed there. She didn't actually get towed to each of the places we thought of, she just had to keep calling and changing the plans. So she eventually got to Pep Boys and they will fix the tire for free if it can be fixed. This tire could not be fixed however. We needed a new tire. Luckilly for us, we only had to pay 15% of the cost of a new tire (i did not know this but the cost of a new tire is 85% covered under warranty if something like this happens). So it was not very expensive to get a new tire thankfully. Michelle got into work finally a few hours late. Michelle had called and told them what happened and stuff so its not like she just showed up three hours late without them knowing why. Still quite an adventure though. All things considered, the whole ordeal went pretty smoothly. Not that you enjoy getting a flat tire at 7:45 am or enjoy getting a ride in a tow truck to a tire store or like waiting inside a Pep Boy's for an hour or so. But all things considered it all went well. You know how when things like this happen it is usually just a horrible experience and there are all kinds of extra costs for repairs. Well not this time. It was more costly for her to have missed the hours at work than for the new tire. The towing is covered by Geiko as well. So...like i said, all things considered it wasn't that bad. Poor Michelle though, she had to be out in the cold and make all the phone calls and arrange it all by herself. I was at home in bed the whole time. Since we only have one car i had no way of going out there to where she was to help. I would have traded spots with her if i could have. So that was Michelle's adventure yesterday. PS-if anyone is looking for car insurance, Geiko really is surprisingly really inexpensive. Like the commercials all say. When i was shopping for car insurance Geiko was like a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the next best company's price, and it is working out great for us so far. I sound like a commercial for Geiko now, don't I?
Chad writing here. I finished the third HP book last night. I stayed up till 3 in the morning reading. I thought i was really close to the end but i still had like 50 pages to go when i decided I would stay up and go for it. After i realized how long it was going to take, I sort of regretted making up my mid to finish it, but i went for it anyways because I don't have school or anything right now. Around 2 or so in the morning my head starting to hurt and i felt sick. I just wanted to finish the book though because I more or less knew everything that was going to happen i just needed to get the book over with. That's the way i like to do things...just kind of do it all at once. I thought the book was alright. I liked the ending overall but then didn't like the every end. I thought Harry should have been able to live with Sirius Black instead of having to go back to the Dursely's. I guess Black's name is still not cleared up, I suppose that that is something that will happen in the future. I am sure they will bring more closure to this thing with Black (I mean, it is already pretty much closed they just need to clear up his name). Dumbledore told Harry before he sent them back in time that they would need more time is all to clear up Black's name. Anyway, I'm not really "hooked" on these books yet. I am moving ahead though quickly with the hope that they will get really good and i will get hooked. I have plenty of time for the next couple of weeks and we might go on a long road trip so we could listen to the books on tape too (we have them all unabridged on my ipod). So the next book is The Goblet of Fire, it is a real lenghty book, over 700 pages. I hope it is really good, or else i don't know if i will have enough steam left in me to tackle a few more 700 page books after this. I need it to get really good so that I feel like I really want to keep going.
Lately Chad and I have been playing guitar hero on the Wii more often. Chad beats me at just about everything we do and every game we play (except Big Brain Academy), so I told him that I was going to practice hard and beat him at a song on Guitar Hero. He said, "No offense, but I don't think that will ever happen. If you were going to beat me at something I don't think it would be guitar hero." He didn't think I had the natural skills for it. lol. So last night I turned on guitar hero (I hadn't even practiced yet since our discussion) and started playing a few songs. Then Chad and I decided to have a competition to see who could get the most points on the song "My Name is Jonas" by Weezer (on medium). I beat Chad on my first try!! In fact, I slaugthered his score!! Of course he couldn't let it stay that win so he continued to try over and over again to beat me. After two tries he did beat my score, but then I tried again and beat his score. We went back and forth a few times and my score was always higher. We played for about two hours last night. Then today we played again and I played it 100% perfectly. Chad kept trying until he played it perfectly as well, but to his dismay my score was still higher. lol. He has yet to beat it. I have to admit, it's been a lot of fun to gloat that I actually beat him despite his complete lack of confidence in my guitar hero skills! :) It's been a lot of fun to play and compete against each other. In fact, as we speak Chad is still trying to beat me. We have been playing for the last 3 hours (in between doing laundry so we're still being productive)! Here's a video and some pictures of Chad trying to beat me. The last picture is of my high score - the Wallace record so far.
My friend Kristi "tagged" me so it's my turn to post these answers to her questions. It's been fun remembering all of the fun times Chad and I have had and all of the millions of reasons I love him so much!!
His full name: Chad Tyler Wallace
Who eats more? Chad definitely eats more at each sitting than I do, but sometimes I can get pretty close to him. In one day though I might actually eat more than him because I am always hungry! I can eat a meal and be hungry again 30 minutes to an hour later, so I snack a lot.
Who said "I love you" first? I did. I had been waiting forever (ok only a few weeks) for Chad to tell me he loved me once I realized I was in love with him, but no luck. Finally we were sitting on the couch talking one night and I asked him how strong his feelings were for me. I really wanted him to say I love you first for some reason - kinda stupid now that I look back on it. He said "really strong" and I asked how strong? He didn't answer that time but instead asked me the same question. I told him that I was in love with him and then he said he loved me too. It was so good to hear! I think that was the happiest day of my life up to that point. I was pretty sure that he felt the same way, but it was good to finally here it.
Who's Taller? Chad - he's 5'11"
Who's smarter? There are some areas where I'm probably smarter, but overall Chad. He definitely has a "wider range" of knowledge than I do. Chad really likes to learn so he is always reading online about lots of different things from politics to history to inventions...Today he was learning about Inca Cola (a soda in South America) on wikipedia. He always does really well in school too and he definitely has more common sense than me. One of the things I love about him is how intelligent he is and how hard he works at everything he does. That's why he is at the #1 school in the nation for his program and doing great!!
Who's more sensitive? Me probably. Chad doesn't really let things get to him too often. I don't think I do either, but I have my days. On the other hand though, Chad is always very sensitive about my feelings and what makes me happy. That is one of the many things that first attracted me to him. He is a lot more sensitive than most guys in that sense. I still remember a couple months after we had met when I had to stay home from work sick. He bought me a card and some treats and told me that he hoped I got feeling better soon and that he wished he could be sick instead of me. He is such a sweet and caring guy! Man, I love him!
Who does the laundry? We both do. Chad helps me every single time and I appreciate it so much!! He helps me carry it all to the basement, load it, comes back down with me to move it to the dryer, take it out of the dryer, etc. Even when I don't technically need help, he helps me. It's just one of the many things he is always doing to help around the house and make things easier for me. I do usually fold the laundry though, but I don't mind.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Chad
Who pays the bills? Chad usually, but I do sometimes and we both work together to make sure everything is payed on time.
Who does the cooking? & What meals do we cook together? I do almost always. Chad doesn't like to cook very much. He will help me sometimes though, which is nice. He helps with desserts probably more often than actual meals. He is good about helping with dishes and setting the table. There are a couple meals that we make together like chicken quesadillas, bagel sandwiches, and grilled cheese.
Who is more stubborn? Neither one of us is very stubborn, but probably me.
Who wears the pants? We have a pretty equal role in the decision making.
What do you like to do together? We like to do just about anything together. We always have so much fun when we do anything, even grocery shopping. We like to hang out with our friends and play games and talk, play the Wii (especially guitar hero and Big Brain Academy), read (right now we're reading Harry Potter), work out, play sports, watch movies, and watch The Office.
Who eats more sweets? Definitely Chad. I've always really liked sweets, but CHad LOVES any sweets, especially candy. I've made homemade peanut butter cups a few times recently and all 24 are usually gone in a day - mostly eaten by Chad. Whenever we have candy around the house, even pretty big bags, it doesn't last long.
Guilty Pleasures? Well, considering we played guitar hero for 2 hours last night and have been playing it almost non-stop since noon today (it's almost 4), I wou ld say that's one of them. And then sweets...
How did you meet? Chad and I both did an internship through BYU in Washington, D.C. a couple of years ago so we met in our prep class to go there. We talked very briefly 2 or 3 times before D.C., but didn't get to know each other until we got there. We went to dinner with a group of people our first night there and we were pretty much inseperable after that.
Who asked who out? Chad asked me out our 3rd night in D.C. We went with his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend to an Ethiopian restaurant. It was a fun atmosphere, but Chad and I were basically apalled by the food. There's a picture of it below. Then we went to look at a lot of the monuments in D.C. and took pictures. We also went ice-skating at an outdoor rink. It was a lot of fun! When Chad's roommate and his girlfriend left we walked to the White House and took more pictures. That was also the first night Chad held my hand.
Who kissed who? Chad tried to kiss me once a couple days after we started dating (he will say it wasn't that quick, but I promise it was) and I turned away. I told him I wasn't ready for that yet and wanted to go slower. Then a month or so later he kissed me again and I let him that time.
Who proposed? Chad - twice, and I said yes both times. When we were on our way home from a trip to Cali right after he graduated and he told me that he wanted to turn off the book on tape and just talk. Then he said that he had been thinking and praying about it for a while and he wanted to marry me and felt like it was right. He said he felt that God had led us to each other and we were supposed to be together. I was sooo happy! I had been waiting forever for him to propose, so of course I said yes right away (it was about time!) and we started planning the whole way home. We picked out a ring together and then about a week and a half later he "officially proposed" at the Salt Lake City Temple by the reflection pool. He had set roses on the side ahead of time and when we walked by he stopped, handed me the roses, and got on his knee to ask me to marry him. Of course I said yes! It was really sweet and totally unexpected. I knew it was coming soon of course, but he had made walking around temple square seem like a completely unplanned and last minute decision. His friends had been hiding there waiting and they took pictures. Best features: I love his thick curly/wavy hair and his gorgeous blue eyes and his muscles...:)
Best quality: He is so completely caring and unselfish. He is always looking for ways to make me happy and will give up what he wants in a second to do so. He is constantly doing nice things for me to show me how much he loves me. He also has a really strong testimony of the gospel and is always trying to do what's right. He honors his priesthood and is a great example to me. I also love his sense of humor. He always makes me laugh and makes me happy with all of the silly things he says and does. It's so much fun to be married to him. I could keep going about all his great qualities, but this blog is already soooo long...
Michelle and I were both wrong, Andrew was called to serve in the Washiongton DC South Mission. I am proud of you, Andrew. Michelle and I were on the phone with my parents and Andrew through a conference call as he opened and read his call. It was really neat. Congratulations again!
My little brother got his mission call today. He has not opened the envelope yet to find out where he is going. He will open it tonight sometime. I am documenting here though that my prediction is Tennessee. Just in case I happen to somehow have guessed it right, I don't want it to be one of those situation where its like, "Oh I totally called it," but nobody believes you or it doesn't seem as cool becase you didn't tell anybody. And Michelle saw me typing this and she added that she predicts Missouri.
Michelle found a guy selling live Christmas Trees for 10$ a couple days ago on Craig's List. We arranged to go to is house and he cut a tree down for us. We drove home with a HUGE tree tied to the roof of our small car. It was quite an ordeal to get the tree to where it is now, in its base and trimmed to a nice size in our living room. We tied the tree to our car by putting a rope through the car and then over the tree, so we actually had to climb in through the windows (the doors were roped shut). We drove home on back roads and everyone looked at us as they passed us. The family that sold us the tree was really nice. It felt really good to get to know some perfect strangers that had the Christmas spirit and were so friendly. This tree, by the way, was hard to get into the apartment. Michelle and I had to drag it through the parking lot and up the stairs to our second floor apartment and then literally force it through our door frame. We did it though, it is here and our apartment smells like Christmas. I will post pictures of the tree as it is now later. These pictures are just of the ordeal getting onto the car and then getting into the car.
I am so thankful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who knows our thoughts and our needs and is always there for us. I know that He knows each of us individually and loves us more than we could imagine. I know that as we sacrifice to serve those around us, especially during this Christmas season, that we will be greatly blessed in return. I am thankful that Jesus Christ was born on this earth to set an example for us and then to suffer and die for us so that we could live with Him again. I know that He is our Savior and that He lives. I hope that we can all remember Him during this time of year and strive to follow His great example of service to others. Merry Christmas!
Michelle and I finished the second Harry Potter book last night. It was pretty good. It was definitely better than the first. We finished the first book last Saturday, so that means we read the second book in 5 days. The first 2 are pretty short. I started the third one last night and I looked to see how long it was -- it is longer than the first two. We are pretty into it you could say. I wouldn't say we are totally hooked quite yet. Mostly I am reading really fast with the hope that the books will get so good that i WILL get hooked. Sounds funny, but i have high expectations for these books. Many people have said they are great books so I am expecting a lot. Its nice to have someone to talk to about the books as we read them. Michelle and I do most of the reading together, but occasionally i will read more after she gets too tired and then she will catch up the next day before we read together. She reads almost twice as fast as me so it doesn't take her very long to catch up. I'm not exaggerating by the way about how much faster she reads than me. It is due to the combination of her being a really quick reader and be being a really slow reader. I wish i could read as fast as her. She could probably have read the first two books in an evening if we didn't read them out loud with each other. So far we both like the books. We both have ideas of things that might happen concerning Vo-- I mean he-who-must-be-named. They ahve alluded to some possible things that i beleive might end up happening.
h the most cracks was out. We kept going until 1 person was left. Chad made it pretty far in this contest too. Here is a video of when he finally got out. We had fun hanging out with all of our friends and eating lots of chocolate. Chad decided to be the Easter Bunny for the two of us this year. He hid plastic, candy-filled eggs for me to find when I woke up Sunday morning. He did a good job. It was fun.
I'm a little behind on the pictures I've been meaning to put up here forever. The first couple are from when we first got our Christmas tree (that adventure explained in an earlier post). You can see part 2 of that adventure here. The tree was huge and after getting it into our apartment we realized we needed to trim it. It was freezing outside and we had already carried the tree up the stairs and shoved it through the door, so we just trimmed it in our front room with the only tool we had - a large kitchen knife. It made a huge mess, but I loved the strong smell of fresh pine. These pictures are of before, during, and after trimming and decorating. We also had fun making Christmas sugar cookies that week. The first couple we decorated were cute and fancy, but then we got tired of decorating and just wanted to eat them so the rest were pretty simple.
Michelle and I were both wrong, Andrew was called to serve in the Washiongton DC South Mission. I am proud of you, Andrew. Michelle and I were on the phone with my parents and Andrew through a conference call as he opened and read his call. It was really neat. Congratulations again!
