Random Thoughts and Updates

I was driving home from work today and remembered that 1. I have a blog, and 2. I'm not very good at updating it regularly. So I decided I would just do one random update with things we've been doing or random thoughts.

Fourth of July - For the second year in a row Jeremy and I went north for the fourth and spent the long weekend with his family in Soda Springs. The fourth of July is THE holiday in Soda Springs. Anyone who is Anyone in Soda can be found cruising the town during the patriotic festivities. On Saturday the city hosted a co-ed softball tournament. Some of Jeremy's high school friends put together a team and invited us to play. I was very nervous about this because I am NOT good at softball, however, I am VERY competitive and so sometimes those two things don't mix. Our team wasn't the greatest and we lost our first two games and were out of the competition but we did have a lot of fun. Jeremy was the best player on our team and had tons of good hits and even a home run. I was just happy that I didn't strike out.

On Monday we attended the parade where we were given these.





Now really, what is more American than an American flag made in China? My answer is nothing! This represents America perfectly. Why would we spend time making a silly cheap flag, when we can simply outsource it to a country that can mass produce it at a much cheaper cost? So I proudly waved my Chinese born American Flag and thoroughly enjoyed the parade. Needless to say we enjoyed our time in Soda.

Basketball - Jeremy and I have recently been pretty obsessed with the NBA's free agency circus. I cannot believe how ridiculous and out of control it has gotten. It has really made me start to hate professional sports. However, I have LOVED the Jazz since I was little and cannot abandon them so we continue to watch and speculate with everyone else. I have a co-worker who grew up in Cleveland and he is OBSESSED with sports, particularly Cleveland sports teams, even more particularly the Cavs and Lebron James. Needless to say, he was absolutely crushed when Lebron left. In hopes of helping him feel better, my co-workers and I prepared a little gift.











And finally to finish off my random post I have a story about my lunch today. Jeremy prepares our lunches everyday because I am SUPER slow at getting ready in the mornings. Today I was at lunch enjoying my nice sandwich with my co-workers when I bit into something that tasted kind of funny. Here is what I found:

The Great White North

Instead of heading south for the Memorial Day weekend where blue skies, warm weather, and sandy beaches were calling our names we decided to head north. Not North to the frozen tundra of Soda Springs or even more north to Rexburg where Denae and my paths may or may not have crossed on the romantic campus of BYU-Idaho. We went way north to the Great White North. We decided we wanted to take a road trip to visit Denae's grandmother who hasn't been feeling well lately and had been in and out of the hospital. She had made the decision to sell her house and move into an assisted living center where she could get more help with the daily tasks of life.

Here is a picture of her enjoying all of her family's company.

This was my first time venturing into Canadia and I was very much up for the task. I was unable to take Friday off of work because both my co-workers had made prior plans to take off for the weekend. We were able to leave SLC around 3 and made it to Heber to pick up Denae's mom and sister and were on the road by 4:30. Luckily we didn't have to go the full 12 hours to Cardston that night. Denae's OCD tendencies took over the week before and she had to play around with the "negotiator". Luckily she got us a sweet deal at the Shilo Inn in Helena, MT.

As a collective body, the closeness of being trapped in the car for so long brought us together, we decided to put on an audio book for the long drive ahead of us. We all agreed on "The Hunger Games" even though 50% of the car had already read the book. I was a little worried about the whole audio book thing since I had never finished one in my entire life because I have ADD (not really, this is a serious condition and not to be made light of) and didn't know if I could drive and try to process the book at the same time. Turns out I could drive and listen to a book at the same time and it was AWESOME. At times I felt like I was the only one listening while everyone else was sleeping but the intensity and suspense of the book willed me to stay awake until we reached Helena.

According to Denae's mother and sister we were the "fun car". We didn't know that we were so much fun. Here is a highlight reel of a few things that made us so fun.

1. We came upon a truck that had some bicycles attached to some sort of bike rack/wanna be trailer on the back and Denae thought one of them was really loose and was going to fall off. So she decided she wanted to be a Good Samaritan and let them know. So I proceeded to speed up next to them so she could let them know. As we got next to them and I rolled down the window so Denae could gesture to them about the bikes, she freaked out and curled up in the fetal position and said that she couldn't do it and that she was too scared. 5 minutes later I look over and Denae is doing a weird combination of sign language, interpretive dancing, and seizure activity. I asked her what she was doing and she said not to worry about it. After minutes of prodding she finally told me that she was acting out in what she thought was her mind how she would have let that truck know that their bike was loose and was going to fall off eventually. It was very cute but we all decided that the bike was securely fastened and we didn't need to tell them anything.

2. We shared a few good laughs as we approached the Soda Springs exit when Denae's little sister Nikki asked her mom, "Where is Jeremy from, Soda Pop?". That was a good laugh.

3. We stopped at one of my all time favorite fast food restaurants that I only get to eat at when I leave the state of Utah and venture into Idaho, Jack-in-the-Box. Where their motto is, "No shirt, no shoes, no problem!". The kid in front of us didn't have shoes on and was walking around the restaurant with his bag of food like a homeless kid. I of course got my all time favorite tacos that are 2 for $.99. The are deep fried and look like they could survive a nuclear holocaust but they are tasty.

Here is a little teaser in case you were getting a hankering for cheap and delicious tacos.

So we fast forward to the part where we are entering Canada the next day. We made it safely to the Shilo, we were able to get a decent amount of rest and take advantage of the free continental breakfast that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

We were all able to successfully cross the border after showing our passports and telling them how much money in cash we had, how much alcohol, and how much tobacco we had on hand. Luckily we didn't have much of anything other than gas from the passenger side (I was driving). Just kidding, Denae would never do that. Let's just say if me and my brothers were in that car together we might not make it over the border for possessing a form of biological warfare.

We finally made it to Cardston, Alberta, Canada around 1pm. I decided that I had two objectives while in Canada other than helping Denae's family with the move and cleaning. First of all, I was going to find "poutine" and I was going to eat it. If any of you were wondering what poutine is according to wikipedia, Poutine (Quebec French pronunciation [putsɪn] (help·info)) is a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curd, covered with brown gravy and sometimes additional ingredients.

Please enjoy the mental feast you are about to experience.
















As far as I could tell there was really only 1 option in Cardston for me to find this wonderful dish, Dairy Queen. I was very happy to have found this little gem and was so proud of myself for accomplishing 1 of my goals not 30 mins into arriving in town. The second goal of mine was to find and eat some Ketchup flavored potato chips. I had heard about these for a while now and I was determined to at least try them. I found them at the local grocery store and they were delicious too.

If anyone knows Denae they know she has some Canadian pride in her blood. She loves to tell people that she is Canadian and on occasion that she is from Canada. She was very disappointed to learn that Canada is run by the Brits and she was determined to start a revolution for them to gain their independence. I guess we will just have to wait and see how that pans out and if she can get some followers.

We ended up having a great weekend. We were able to get most of the house cleaned up and either taken over to the care center, loaded into the u-haul, or in our respective cars. We were able to spend a lot of time relaxing in the front room and just talking and sharing stories. It was a good time had by all. Here are some more pictures of the weekend.

Here is Denae having trust issues and thinking that I would drop her while she was on the dolly.

Here is Reece and I taking apart the kitchen table.


The road trip back was a long one because we needed to do it all on Monday to make it back in time for work. I was not looking forward to the 12 hour drive but the highlight of the drive home was a little ray of hope I spotted while we were leaving Helena on the way up to Canada. This ray is one of my all time favorite places to eat, Buffalo Wild Wings.





And just like their slogan says, you just had to be there.

My Husband the Chef!

Nearly everyone who knows Jeremy knows he LOVES food! But it's not just eating food that he loves. He loves watching TV shows about food, reading about food, cooking food, talking about food, basically we loves everything about food. Of course, this is a quality about him that I love because it means he often...well pretty much always, does the cooking. It is AWESOME! He's quite the gourmet chef too. He makes a mean brisket in the crock-pot. Last week I enjoyed his lasagna everyday for lunch at work. And this week his grand plan was to make home made chile verde!

This is Jeremy starting his Chile Verde Adventure.



The recipe called for lots of chile's and tomatillo's to be broiled so he thought he'd get it started before church, hence the outfit.



Once his creation was complete it said to let it simmer for 3 hours on the stove, so we thought we'd just let it cook during church.



BIG MISTAKE!!! Apparently, we let it simmer a little too long. It was very disappointing. We tried the meat and it tasted really good, it was just the sauce that was fried to the pan. This made it even more depressing because we knew it could have been really good. The good news was that we had gone to Costco the night before just as it was closing so we grabbed a take and bake pizza for $5 so we didn't have to starve Sunday night!

It's like riding a bike...

Have you ever heard or said the phrase, "it's easy, it's just like riding a bike?" I think it's people that haven't ridden a bike in awhile that say things like that. There is nothing easy about riding a bike. Sure, it was easy when you were like 10 and weighed maybe 70 pounds and were completely clueless about physics and the amount of pain that can be caused by you flying down a hill on a bike, hitting a rock, and then being introduced to the ground. I think that everyone who uses that phrase should immediately have to get on a bike and try riding it, and not just down the side walk. It is quite difficult to keep your no longer 70 pound frame upright and following a straight line, especially when you are terrified about falling and killing yourself. I recently had all of these thoughts rush through my mind as I broke out my mountain bike this spring. We finally went and bought Jeremy a bike so that we could go riding together. I only went out once last year because we were dating and he didn't have a bike which meant I didn't have the time. I was a little nervous to see if Jer could actually ride a bike, but then I remembered he is a boy and boys are some how always good at things like this. We took the bikes out to Draper to ride a portion of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail above the Draper Temple. We had a great time! At first, I thought I was going to die because I wasn't that good at controlling my bike, and I was really tired and out of shape. But after we kept plugging through the ride got better and my body adjusted. Here are some pictures from our first ride of the season.





After our successful first trip we decided to head up Parley's Canyons and ride the Alexander Creek Trail. This is one of my favorite trails but I have never completed it because it gets really steep. We didn't finish it this time either because it was getting dark and we were tired but we had a great time. For some reason every time I am on this trail I think I am going to be attacked by a moose, cougar or beaver. This is not a popular trail so you rarely see anyone else and I am convinced that there are wild animals watching me through the trees. Luckily, we didn't run into any of them on this trip!

Famous Quotes by Denae

I have just been added as an author and had to do it myself because Denae said she added me but in reality she did not. So as my first post on this blog I want to try and add some of Denae's famous quotes so you can see what I get to hear on a daily basis.

Here is what she said today about me faxing in my GMAT scores first thing in the morning.
Denae: "You better do that first thing in the morning because the early worm catches the birds"
Me: "Wow!?!?!?!? I don't think that's right though."

Hopefully I can keep adding to this post. Thank you and goodnight.

Let's Hear It For New York!!!

We were able to take some time off work and away from our failing water system to go to New York City and Boston. We had a great time. We ate a ton of good food, saw a Yankee's game, Jersey Boys, had a backstage tour of Jersey Boys, watched the Boston Marathon, learned some U.S. History on the Freedom Trail and did a lot of walking!




We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to have lunch at this great pizza place. The pizza was amazing!



I'm still working on converting Jer to my love of Apple.



Jersey Boys was like being at a concert, the music was amazing!



One of Jer's favorite stops was lunch at Sylvia's in Harlem before the Yankee's game. They have good old fashioned soul food. He got the fried chicken and I got the ribs, and with mashed potatoes and mac and cheese for sides how can you go wrong?






Jer love's his Yankee's. It was pouring rain and freezing so I wore just about every article of clothing I brought to try and keep warm during the game. We got to see C.C. Sabathia pitch and they won!









I have to admit, I learned that I know very little about U.S. History on this trip. We ended up buying a little book so that I could play tour guide and we could actually know the significance of the things were seeing.




On of my favorite parts of the trip was watching the Boston Marathon. They basically shut the city down and everyone comes out and cheers on the runners. We were right near the finish line and the streets were just packed with people. People were hanging out of building windows cheering on the runners. One of the best parts was when we saw this group of army soldiers running in full gear. Anyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for sappy sports stories but this was really inspirational. When they came running by in full gear everyone was going nuts trying to urge them to the finish. It was really awesome. We couldn't get many good pictures from the marathon because everyone kept running but just trust me when I say it was awesome.

The Singles Ward

This past Friday night Jer and I were introduced to a whole new under ground world within the Church. It was crazy! We were asked to come help prepare refreshments and take money for a singles dance. So we show up and start asking questions about how many people were going to show up and they said there are usually about 500 people! WHAT! We had never heard of a singles dance getting 500 people so we were a bit shocked. Then one of the volunteers said they have these dances every 4th Friday of the month. Again, we had never heard of this. So finally Jer said, "We were in a YSA ward and we never heard of these," to which the response was, "take off the Y, this is a 30+ singles dance and the average age is 45-65". Insert jaw drop and big eyes now. The average age is 45-65, say what?

We were assigned to take money at one of the doors so Jer went to man our station while I finished up in the kitchen. I was about to head over to our door when one of the ladies said, "wait, don't forget your badge". "Badge?" I said. "So everyone will know you are unavailable". Oh boy. So I get my badge and grab Jer's and start over for our post. As I round the corner, I see this woman standing at the table Jer is at and hear, "So are you like in one of the singles wards?" Really. This lady is hitting on Jer and he has been without his protective hands off badge for 5 minutes? I knew we were in for an interesting evening...



My badge said Priesthood Advisor Companion.

Here are some of the highlights from the evening (keep in mind that all of the people listed below are probably older than our parents):

1. Creepy 50 something guy telling us he had been divorced many times.
2. Crazy lady from above story forcing Jer to write down the website for these dances to pass on the information to our +30 year old friends. It's www.slc-sa.org if you are interested.
3. The woman who came to our table to get a mint and told us she was dancing with some guy who said, "I don't know what it is that you ate but it does not smell good." And she was actually fine with being told this, she said she was just happy he told her so she knew and we both tried to tell her that no one should talk to her that rudely but she didn't really care.
4. The woman who told us we looked like high schoolers and are too young to be married and should get divorced, experience single life for awhile longer and then get married.
5. The woman who told us to never get divorced, even though dancing is really fun it's not worth the pain of divorce. Thank you for that sound advice!
6. The woman who got her bracelet stuck to her dress and I had to perform surgery to remove the stupid thing.
7. The man who said we needed to chaperone him and his date more because she was getting to affectionate with him.
8. The woman who was with the man listed above that asked if she could have a mint and then creepy man asking if they could share the same mint.

Those are just some of the highlights from the evening. Needless to say our eyes were opened and we had a very enjoyable evening.