Boston Pictures, Finally!

Here is a bunch of pictures from our amazing trip to Boston, in chronological order. Sorry there are so many, it was just too hard to try and eliminate which pictures to put in because we did so many cool things and saw so many amazing cites. The description of each picture is BELOW the picture.

This is the first stop on the Freedom Trail: Boston Commons.

Paul Revere's grave

"Stand in opposition"

Site of the Boston Massacre

This is the bench we were sitting in inside the chapel where the lamps were lit to let Paul Revere know the Red Coats were coming "by sea"

Another view of that same chapel: "One if by land, two if by sea."

Me firing a canon on the USS Constitution

Michelle going below on the USS Constitution, the oldest commisioned ship in the U.S.

Michelle after we ran up and ran down the 294 steps of the monument below...

Old Bunker Hill

The Green Monster (it's much bigger than it looks on TV and in this picture)

Me and Ken's seats at Fenway Park. I think these seats are originals.

Ground Level at Fenway Park, the Red Sox beat the Indians really bad so it was a good game

My red sox ticket

New England Aquarium, Michelle with Penguins

Me Picking up a starfish at the aquarium

Me checking out some Jelly Fish

Me having some New England Clam Chowda' at Legal Sea Foods

Some weird social experiment...i guess...at Harvard University. I went along with her little game and told her a truth in one ear and a lie in the other

Harvard's Memorial Hall

Us at Harvard

Boston Science Musuem

Boston Temple, very beautiful

Michelle, also very beautiful


A display at the JFK Presidential Museum and Library

Who would I have voted for?

Some of Jacky Kennedy's dresses.

JFK was a WWII hero. His ship got blown up, he swam and pulled several soldiers to safety on a remote island, and wrote a message on this coconut and sent it for help. We didn't beleive this story was true until we saw this display and read the actual military reports

JFK museum


I had heard this quote before, didn't know who it was from though

John Adams' presidential library. these books are really old

Plymouth Rock

The man who led the militia that stood up to the Red Coats and started the American Revolution

Cool monument in Lexington where the Revolution started

The North Bridge in Concord where the colonial Americans turned the Red Coats around and started to win us our freedom...

We hit a deer on the freeway last night

Last night, on our way home from Montreal, we hit a deer while we were driving on the freeway. It was one of the craziest and saddest things that has ever happened to me. We were about 17 mils away from home, and it was about 9:15 at night. It was totally dark and we were on a smaller highway in upstate New York so it was really dark and we were in a wooded area. The instant that I saw the deer was the same instant that it ran in front of my car and I immediately slammed on the breaks. I had maybe a half second or a third of a second to even process what I was seeing, so needless to say there was no time to avoid hitting it. It flew straight up when I hit it, and Michelle and I both saw the deer literally flying straight up, upside down. It landed in front of the car and sadly we ran over it. The whole ordeal was maybe a second. After it happened we immediately pulled over, called 911, and said a prayer of thanks that Michelle and I were both fine. Another car pulled over to make sure we were fine. When the guy in the other car found out we were fine he took off almost right away because the scene was so gross and already smelled awful. I could see the deer, it was right next to my side of the car when we were pulled over. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. I thought about taking a picture of it...but my better judgment convinced me that nobody would ever want to see it. I did take pictures of the car though. I got two estimates today, both were over $7,000. I guess that is why you have car insurance (we would be in big trouble if car insurance didn't exist). I guess this is also why you are supposed to keep an emergency fund saved in a savings account of somewhere like that. It is ironic that we had such a good time in Canada over Memorial Day weekend and finished it off with this experience. It is even more ironic that we went to such great lengths to save money while in Canada and then had this happen and will have to pay for our large deductible for our car insurance. We bought a bunch of food at Wal-Mart before we left to go to Canada and then took it all in an ice chest. I am proud to say that we did not spend a single penny on food on our entire trip in Canada. That was our goal. Little did we know this would happen. We had a great time in Canada, and I will write more about that in a later post. In the mean time, enjoy these pictures.

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for...

1. The beautiful tulips of all different colors planted all over Syracuse

2. The warm weather

3. My job so close to home with great hours so I can spend evenings with my wonderful husband

4. The prayers and support of all our family and friends

My First Plant

A few months again at a Relief Society activity I got a little tiny flower pot with a seed inside. I brought it home and set it in the kitchen window, without too much hope that it was going to grow. There wasn't much sun in Syracuse at that time. To my surprise though, it has grown so much! It finally got too big for the little pot and was starting to fall over, so Chad and I re-potted it yesterday. I've never had my own plant or re-potted one, so I didn't know if you were supposed to buy special soil or what exactly the best way to do it was. We decided to just go buy a bigger pot at the dollar store. We didn't want to buy soil, so we walked around our apartment complex for about 10 minutes looking for some "good dirt". We finally found a decent spot of dirt that some trees and flowers were growing in. We didn't have a shovel, so I dug it up with a big spoon and my hands. Then I just took the whole plant, soil and all, out of the old pot, put it in the new pot, and added more dirt to fill it up. I still don't know what this plant is, so if anyone else does, let me know. Someone else from relief society said it's some kind of flower, but I don't know what kind. I am excited that it has grown so well so far and am excited to see it bloom - hopefully soon. Here are some pictures:

This is my plant after a few weeks. It grew so much faster than I expected! It seemed like I just woke up one day and it was all of a sudden a few inches tall.
This is my plant the other day when it was WAY too big for it's pot. I had to put a pencil in there to hold it up straight.

Here is the plant in it's new pot - it looks much better!

Fire Creek

About three and a half years ago, right when I came home from my mission, some of my roommates were film students and were really into making movies and stuff. One night, when I should have been studying for a test, I let one of my roommates convince to drive up to this secluded hill up in the foresty area of Provo and help out with a movie that BYU was filming called Fire Creek. I got a very small role (but bigger than an extra, I would say). I was a boxer (in the boxing scene, obviously). For a few minutes my job was basiclly just to box this other guy. They filmed us for a while and I even did this cool scene where I fell to my knees and then fell face forward. Everyone was impressed that I would really let myself fal on my face like that, lol. Anyways, I totally forgot all about the movie until today. I read on Deseret News that the movie is finally gettign released. I did some more research and read that it is being showed at Varsity Theatre at BYU and in some Cinemark theatres throughout Utah. If anybody goes to see it, LOOK FOR ME! haha...hopefully they didn't cut me out of the movie of something. Just look for a version of me that is about 25 pounds lighter and 4 years younger or so. Apparently this is the firs movie ever shown in theatres that was produced by all undergraduate students.

Historic News: I Ate A Green Bean Last Night!

I ate a green bean last night for the first time in 22 years. To explain the significance of this event, I suppose I should start at the begining....It all starts when I was about three years old. This memory, I beleive, is the earliest one I have. I do not beleive I could have any earlier memories since the hypothalamus doesn't being to fully develop until the age of three, but I digress. I remember the color and texture of the high chair I was in. I remember where I was sitting at the table. I remember the lighting. I remember all of this and I was only three years old. My mom tried to make me eat a green bean. I also remember not liking the taste of it one bit. I still remember the flavor and not wanting to eat it. I could never eat green beans again, or so I though. For years and years and years, the smell alone of green beans was enough to make me feel sick. I am not exagerating at all. When Michelle is cooking or something I can't even stand to have green beans on the same plate as my food. I am honestly not that picky of an eater (I am kind of picky) but not as bad as some peole. I like most vegetables and I enjoy most kinds of foreign foods. At any rate, last night I wanted Michelle to eat a little bit of the fish filet that I had cooked and she wouldn't do it. I knew she doesn't like fish, but I just wanted to see if I could get her to do it. She is about as bad with fish as I am or was with green beans. She has actually tried certain types of fresh fish and tuna though so she is not as bad as me with green beans. I had a strict zero tolerance for 22 years with green beans. Anyways, last night when I tried to get Michelle to eat some fish I impulsively said I would eat a green bean if she ate some fish. I just kept telling myself, if so many peoplem love to eat green beans, they can't be as bad as my mind has made them out to be. I knew I wasn't going to like it, I just knew I could tolerate it. And I did. Michelle cooked a green bean and I ate it no problem. I don't really want to eat them or anything, but perhaps with time I will. This was a big step for me. Sorry for making you waste your time and read about something as trivial as me eating a green bean. To me this is big news though.

Mormon Movies

I read an article on Mormontimes.com - which I beleive is some type of subsidiary of Deseret News because they always have their articles linked on their website - called "Dynamite, Dutcher, Hitchcock and the failure of LDS movies." It talked mostly about the God's Army films and the creator of the two films. Michelle doesn't think too highly of God's Army 2, I however have not seen the film from beginning to end. What I have seen of it was a little hard to watch because of how inaccurately it portrayed missionary life (or at least my experience as a missionary). I did not know this until I read the article but the producer of God's Army apparantly left the Church a couple years ago so his ideologies and philosophies while creating the films may not have been completely on flattering or accurate regarding the Church. Either way I don't care about that, I am writing this blog to say that the article completely neglected what are in my opinion the best two LDS films: Saints and Soldiers and New York Doll. Saints and Soldiers is amazing, not just for an LDS film, but on standards for any movie.



This movie is about a small group of allied soldiers who are behind enemny lines in Germany during WWII. It is based on a true story and one of the actors in the movie is the grand son of the man he portrays. Saints and Soldiers is actually one of the most viewed movies on Hulu.com which I think is saying something. Ironically though, all the people who have commented about the movie on Hulu evidently have no idea what the message of the movie was and they also have no idea that the movie was produced by and all of its actors are LDS. We have the DVD and in some of the extras on the DVD it talks all about the people who produced it and there is no doubt that it is an 'LDS movie,' whatever that means. Above all else, the movie's got Kirby Heybourne in it so...yeah, it is an LDS movie. What actually kind of frustrated me to read in the comments on Hulu was that many people thought the movie was criticizing Mormons because the "Mormon is a sniper who kills people and the Atheist is a medic who saves lives." While that is true about the two people in the movie, it is in now way an attack on Mormons. The movie praises the Mormon for his morals and standards even in war times. His supervisor says how remarkable of a soldier he is and knows he can always counts on him in sticky situations. Furtermore (I will not give away too much about what happens) the atheist actually converts to beleiving in God by the example and the actions of his Mormon counterpart. It is completely beyond me how anyone could think this movie was anti-Mormon. New York Doll is a documentary about Arthur Kane, the bassist of the popular 70's punk band 'The New York Dolls." It is no action packed thriller but it is very captivating and enthralling. Arthur Kane lived a rock star lifestyle and is probably the least likely person you would expect to convert to the LDS church. He saw a TV commercial for a free bible and requeste one and it came delivery of two sister missionaries. He joins the Church and at the time of the documentary works at the LA temple. Other people who volunteer at the temple didn't even know he was a rockstar until the filmers interviewed them. It is really cool to see Arthur reunite with his band members and tell them he has found God and he is able to mend some past relationships that ended poorly. I will not give away how this film ends but it is a touching movie. These are, in my opinion, the best two Mormon movies. When you compare them to movies like Singles Ward 2, there is no comparison. I actually liked Singles Ward 1 when I first saw it before my mission but I tried to watch it again since then once and I couldn't even finish it because I thought it was so silly. A lot of people commented in Deseret News about the article on M0rmon Movies that most LDS films basically just try and exploit a niche with movies that nobody that isn't mormon would understand and provides only cheap laughs. I mostly agree with that. Nevertheless, Saints and Soldiers and New York Doll are two great movies. They are very different from each other, both are very good though.

Our Amazing Trip to Boston

Michelle and I just got home from an amazing trip to Boston. We did so many amazing things. Michelle used up some of her time off and I finished finals earlier in the week so it was a perfect time for us to take a vacation. We arrived in Boston at a friend's house on Wednesday night. We are so thankful to our friends that let us stay at their house. On Thursday we met up with Ken and Jenny Matthews who had arrived in Boston earlier in the week and we all walked the entire Freedom Trail. It is a 2.5 mile long 'outdoor museum' consisting of 16 historical sites. The Freedom Trail was fantastic! My favorite part was going on the USS Constitution and going in the chapel where the two lanterns were lit to let Paul Revere know what message he needed to deliver to the colonies in Lexington and Concord (I learned a lot on this trip). After the Freedom Trail we took a short but very much needed nap at the Matthews' hotel room. Then at night Ken and I went to Fenway Park and went to a Red Sox game. We watche them beat the Indians pretty bad. We got lucky and bought tickets last week before it sold out. It worked out well that our wives could hang out while we went to the game because only Ken and I really cared about going to a Red Sox game. Fenay Park was incredible. We got to go down to field level and check things out before the game. The green monster (the left field wall) is so much bigger than it looks like on TV by the way. The Red Sox had a 12 run inning and won the game, so we picked a good game to go to! On Friday, Michelle and I went to the New England Aquarium and the Science Musuem. We were lucky enough to get free tickets to both of these places. We saw lots of penguins and sharks and an electric eel at the impressive aquarium. I even got to eat a bowl of the famous New Enland Clam Chowder from the nearby Legal Sea Foods. The Science Museum was so huge I don't even know where to start! We also went on an official tour of Harvard University. I was very surprised by how small the univeristy and campuse are! It is tiny, there are only 6,000 undergradute students! We got to see the memorial building that looks like something out of Harry Potter (not because it is based off of something from Harry Potter, but because Harvard and Hogwarts are both based off of Oxford University in England). We also went to the Boston Temple. It is a lot bigger and more beautiful than the pictures I looked up show. At night on Friday Michelle and I followed our adventurous side and decided to drive to Rhode Island just for the sake of going to Rhode Island. We had no idea where we were going to go but we wanted to be able to say we had been there. We happened to drive to the state capitol building and walked around the state's legislative building (it looks like a smaller version of the US capitol). On Saturday we went to the JFK presidential library and museum. This was my favorite part of the trip. I am embarrased to say I knew virtually nothing about President Kennedy before this. I also didn't know how cool a presidential library and museum are. We watched some very touching movies about JFK and looked at an amazing museum full of exhibits and artificacts from his life. One of the coolest things though was talking to people who were alive during his career (remember, we are in Massachusetts where he was from) and knew so much about him and loved him so much. I didn't know he was a WWII war hero or that he was a unmarried senator at one point when entering the Senate. We both just learned so much! I can't really put in to words the respect I gained for this president whose career was sadly ended too early. After the JFK museum we went to Quincy, MA where we went on a trolley tour throughout the city which took us to John Adams and John Quincy Adams' birthplaces, houses, mansion, and presidential library. This was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Their houses and everything are still preserved and are quite remarkable things to see. My favorite was the library of the origianl and authentic 14,000 books that John Adams owned. Keep in mind these books are over 200 years old! On Saturday we also drove to Plymouth, MA. We saw Plymouth Rock where the Pilgrims landed and saw the Mayflower II (a replica of the Mayflower). That's basically all there is to do in Plymouth. On Sunday we visited all the Revolutionary War stuff. We went to Lexington first where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired. We went to the actual field where this took place. Later we went to Concord and the North Bridge where the local militias actually organized a strong fight against the British Red Coats and turned them around in their march to squash an uprising. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would. The Naitonal Parks Services does a great job of teaching you all about this stuff as you go. Let me just say that I learned so much from these places about the Revolutionary War. I can barely even imagine how brave the militia members were that stood up to the British soldiers. They were committing acts of treason and would have been hanged for what they were doing but they knew that America deserved better and would become a free country. It was cool being at the actual bridge where the colonial militias made a stand and pushed the Red Coats back. I have a much deeper appreciation for these things than I did before. Unfortunately, the vacation had to eventually end and we drove home Sunday evening. We took lots of pictures though, I will try to look through them and put some up in the next couple of days.

Don't Save Prison Break

I am waiting for my Sponge Bob Square Pants shaped Macaroni and Cheese to cool down and it is taking forever so I decided to write a quick blog entry while I am waiting. Many of you may have heard of a show called 'Prison Break.' It is on Fox and is in its fourth season. Michelle and I have seen every episode and watch it still every week. However, we found out recently that this will be its last season, in fact, there only 2 more episodes left. I saw on someone's blog recently a post asking people to help them try and save the show 'Chuck,' which presumably has also been canceled. Conversely to that blog, I am writing this blog to tell people NOT to do anything to try and save Prison Break. The first two seasons were amazing. I could not stop watching (we watched both of them on DVD). The third and current season were absolute garbage though. I cannot stop watching because I have already invested so much into the show and also I know it is almost over so I just keep going. If it weren't for that though I would abandon the show. The first season was the probably the coolest season of TV I have ever seen. It is about a guy named Michael who is an architect and engineer genius that purposely gets arrested and goes into prison in order to break out of prison with his brother (Lincoln) who is on death row (but was framed by the government in a huge government conspiracy). Michael has lots of cool tricks up his sleeve for how they will get out prison, one of them is that he has tattooed the blue prints for the prison in a disguised manner all over his body. Another is that he has done massive amounts of research on everybody in the prison and will be able to manipulate everyone from the warden to the nurse to his cellmate to the gang leaders. The second season is all about them having escaped and being on the run. This season is cool because you watch some of the people in the govt. conspiracy fall and get arrested and stuff. Up until and including this season I would say it is my favorite show of all time. Unfortunately, the writer's strike took place during the third season, and that combined with the plot already running low on ideas made the third season a complete joke. The third season involves the Michael and several other characters getting arrested in Panama and going back to prison, this time in Panama. It is supposed to be this awful dangerous prison, but this season is just lame. Now, in the final and fourth season, they are back in the U.S. and the plot is this weird convoluted thing of everyone fighting against the govt. conspiracy. Everybody ends up being corrupt and now they are going to try and take down the conspiracy in one last hurrah. It would be weird if the show ended without Michael and Lincoln being exhonerated and the govt. conspiracy being taken down so I am assuming that is what is going to happen some way or another. My prediction is that Lincoln is going to end up walking a free man and Michael will have to go to jail for like a year or something for all the things he has done along the way in freeing his brother. I have no clue what is going to happen to everyone else, their stories are all so weird there is no way of predicting. Alright I'm going to eat my shapes mac and cheese now.

Swimming lessons at 22

So I've never been a great swimmer. I had swimming lessons once (or maybe a couple times - I can't remember) when I was little. I know all of the strokes (at least the basic idea), and I can swim relatively fast, but there has always just been one problem - I hate having my face under the water. I've never liked swimming underwater - even with goggles on. Water always got in my eyes and messed with my contacts and I was never very good at keeping water out of my nose. I'm one of those people who always has to plug their nose when they jump in the pool or go underwater. Also, I think having my face in the water just makes me feel claustrophobic. So as a result, whenever I swim I keep my head above the water (unless I'm jumping in with my nose plugged). I do the freestyle while holding my face out of the water the whole time. It actually takes a lot more energy and makes it a lot harder, but it has always worked fine for me. During a semester at BYU I even regularly swam a mile in the lap pool this way. The other day though, Chad and I went to swim laps at our gym. We bought goggles and I decided I was going to try to do the freestyle the right way so that I could swim further without using so much energy. I hated it as soon as I started. I didn't like my face under water and I constantly felt like I was gasping for air even if I turned my head to breathe every two strokes or so. Plus, I kept getting water in my nose and it burned. I was going to just go back to my way, but then I decided to let Chad teach me because I could tell it took a whole lot less energy to swim the freestlye the right way instead of constantly holding my head and face out of the water. So Chad started teaching me how to not get water in my nose when I went under and how to breathe the right way. I am definitely getting better and it is getting easier. There was a little girl in the lane next to us who asked if I was getting swimming lessons - kind of embarrassing - I'm 22! lol. Anyway, I'm ready to finally get over my fear of my face in the water and learn the right way, so more "lessons" from Chad to come...

I'm all Palmyra'd Out

Michelle and I went to Palmyra, NY today and ended up staying there for eight hours! Our friends here in Syracuse will probably not find this too interesting since everyone has been to Palmyra numerous times probably and visited all the sites, but hopefully our friends out West can enjoy this post. For those who are not familiar with Palmyra, it is the city where the Book of Mormon was found in a hill and then published, it is where Joseph Smith lived, and it is very close to where the Church was organized and legally established. Michelle and I went to the temple (that is also in Palmyra) and decided we would visit all of the Church's historical sites while we were there. There are about 6 places to go, and all of them are within a few miles of each other with one exception. Despite having lived here for almost a year we hadn't visited all of the historical places and we didn't want to move back West in a couple months and then realize we had missed our chance to visit the amazing places that we read about all the time (and especially while we were so close). So we started our day early and decided we would go to every place on the list. After our first stop to the Book of Mormon's publication site Michelle and I both realized we had terribly misjudged how long our day was going to be. I thought you just went to a little old printing press where they published the book and would be in and out real quick. I was wrong. We went on an hour and fifteen minute tour. It was nice, I just had no idea how long it was going to take. Then we visited Alvin Smith's grave and the Martin Harris farm. Next we went to the Sacred Grove, walked around, and also got a tour of the Smith Family farm. Next we went to Hill Cumorah and at this point we decided to run up the hill to save time. It's a deceivingly steep hill...so we only actually ran for about five seconds. After getting to the top and taking a few pictures we did run down the hill though. Finally, we went to the Church's organization site, the Whitmer farm. Somehow we spent eight hours in Palmyra, the city is tiny. We are both so tired and feel like we don't need to go do any more sight seeing in Palmyra for quite a long time.

Basically A Perfect Weekend

Michelle and I were talking about what a fun weekend we had and we both agreed that it was basically a perfect weekend. We got to spend lots of time with lots of our friends and the weather was perfect! The weather was so nice in fact that I think it kind of caught a lot of us off guard. (blog continued below pictures)

The temperature kind of skipped the 50's, 60's and 70's and jumped right up to the 80's and 90's. It feels like I have been waiting forever for it be warm enough outside to not need a big jacket. Well that is definitely not a problem anymore! On Friday there was a Elder's Quorum BBQ at Green Lakes and everyone's families were invited. Everybody helped chip in to help bring stuff and it turned out amazing. There was so much great food and an amazing turnout. Those of us who could still run after eating multiple burgers and hot dogs played ultimate frisbee. This BBQ is one of my favorite experiences here in Syracuse. On Saturday we went to a really beautiful State Park that some of our friends told us about. It is called Chittenango Falls. There is a nice waterfall, some easy hiking, and a fun little river to walk around in and cool off. We went with the Matthews and Jenny and Michelle did some very brave exploring walking upstream in the river barefoot. It was another amazing day outside and I can't think of any better way to have spent it. Finally on Sunday we had a great time hanging out with friends and again eating as much as we could handle of the amazing taco dinner that some of our friends organized. All in all the weather was perfect and we got to spend so much time outside and with our friends. Don't ask how but I somehow managed to write the final paper for one of my classes on Saturday as well.

Syracuse Chiefs

Michelle and I wanted to go to a Chiefs game this weekend (the Chiefs are the AAA baseball team for the Washington Nationals). We were leaning towards going to the game yesterday until I saw on the schedule that today's game was sponsored by the Catholic Diocese and you could get free tickets form any of a number of sponsors (there stores, restaruants, etc). So I went to one of the restaurants yesterday morning after my class to ask them for some tickets and the guy was like, "How many do you want?" And I asked if I could have six, and he instead handed me a stack of 63 (I counted). So I started telling pretty much everyone I knew that I had enough free tickets for any one to come. It was pretty cool. It's AAA so its pretty high quality baseball and usually some of the players have been in the Majors but are down in AAA for one reason or another. The Chiefs won today so it was even more fun. It was an exciting game with a couple home runs and quite a bit of action. Me and one of my friends each paid a dollar to see how fast we could throw a baseball. There is video of me throwing a baseball. It is a lot harder than I thought...as you will see by how fast my pitch was.

Easter

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.

Normalizing Relations with Communist Cuba

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.

Thankful Thursday

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!

A man who ran under the banner of change and whose citizenship was questioned

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.

I actually had to sleep with the fan on last night...

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.

R.A.D. - Rape Aggression Defense

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.

The Worth of a Full-Time Mother

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.

Craig's List is so cool!

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...

That was hard to watch...

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 begins tomorrow

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.

The West Wing

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's Special Breakfast

Chad made me a yummy bacon, egg, and cheese mcmuffin before work one day. Now it is one of our favorite breakfasts - so much better than McDonalds.