Jon and Liz

Christmas in February

2012-02-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Before we get into our belated Christmas post, I need to recount a sad story. Once there was a boy named Luke, and his parents never called him Luke, but instead called him things that rhymed with Luke: Spook, the Duke, Spadook, daspookus, and the like. The most common one that they called him, however, was the Spook. And then one day, when these parents were eating dinner over a friends house, a friend who happened not to be Caucasian, they called him Spook, and their friends informed them that was a racial slur. The end.

Anyway, onto Christmas. This was our Christmas tree this year, which we successfully kept blocked off from Luke with the two chairs and the ottoman:

The two of us in front of the tree:

Family picture with Santa at my family's Christmas party (Luke is just the cutest thing all lookin' up at Santa):

Luke with the present Santa gave him:

Luke opening his present, looking confused because it looks just like a book he has at home (Spoiler alert: it was the book from home).
We forgot to get him a present so just wrapped up something he already had. Like he knows the difference.

Our fake Christmas morning in Cedar City, Luke getting all the DVD's his Dad couldn't help but buy :):
Luke getting some books from our friend Lindsay Pace--he loves them:

Our real Christmas morning at my sisters house. We didn't have any presents for Luke (again, like he cared) so we just watched my sisters cute kids open their presents. The video might be too exciting for you to handle, so be warned:

Okay, just kidding, it wasn't exciting at all.

Later that night, opening his toy train at Grandma McNaughtans:

And then a few days later, launching rockets with my family, a tradition from our childhood:

Luke really didn't like the rockets though:

Yeah, you can hear me and Jon laughing when he starts crying, that's our parenting style. You can also hear other babies crying in the background. Maybe this isn't as happy a tradition as we originally thought (just jokes...they'll toughen up).

Welp, that's all.

Happenings with Luke

2012-02-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

It's a been a while since we've visited the old blog, and Luke has gotten considerably cuter since the last time. So to catch up on the latest shenanigans of Luke, he's:

1) Being cute:

2) Embarassed about being the cutest kid at church:
3) Stealin' Dad's car keys:
4) Has bad dreams sometimes and needs Dad to read him some late night stories:
5) Loves playin' in the fridge:
6) Loves playing with the grocery bags:
7) Grows nails like a weed that need to be cut every three days, I swear:
8) Is pretty good at finding where Mom hides the cookies:
9) I actually don't know what this next one is. Being drunk, maybe? There is an empty medicine bottle next to him:
10) Wrestling with Dad and his new big dog:
11) Pulling out the tupperware, his daily duty:
12) Doing a little research with Dad:
13) Resting with Mr. Dog:
14) Well, just overall being cute, I guess:
That Luke, it's a tough life being that cute.

The Time I Met A Sister Wife

2011-12-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Jon and I went to the SUU President's Gala tonight, where they gave us free tickets to the David Archuleta concert. We debated whether we would go, and finally decided to just go for a couple of songs.

Little did I know that fate was on our side tonight.

Our major change of plans came when I spotted a long sleeve shirt and layered shirt--I'd recognize it anywhere:

That's right, a polygamist was in our midst. A famous polygamist! Christine from TLC's SisterWives was there with all the teenage girls! I told Jon that before we left I needed a picture with Christine. Jon said he wouldn't take the picture for me, so for a while I thought this creepy picture is all I would walk away with.

But then, intermission came, and while Jon's back was turned I got the courage up to go and talk to the sister wife.

She was very nice, and her mom took the picture for us:

(Before you judge how I look in this picture, I want you to ask yourself--how would YOU look after spending half an hour in a David Archuleta concert with a bunch of screaming tweens?):

My conversation with Christine went something like this:

Me: My sisters will be so jealous. We just watched the season finale.

Christine: Oh my gosh! Did you cry!?

Me: Yes! And after watching I told my husband I really want a home birth.

Christine: You should totally do it! If your husband is supportive it is totally do-able. What's your husband like? Is he really supportive?

Me: Ummm, he wouldn't even come and take this picture for me--so...no.

And then we laughed and laughed, and talked and talked, and I started a revolution because people started lining up behind me to talk to her having been inspired by my courage to approach her.

A few people even came up and were like, "Liz! I see you've met someone I've always wanted to meet. Will you introduce me to your friend?" And I was like, "Totally--Jory, meet my long time friend Christine"

Long story short, she asked if I would consider becoming the fifth wife in their marriage.*** I said thanks but no thanks--but asked if we could still be sister wives, only I'll keep my husband while she continues sharing hers. I think our plan is a go. ***

Because after all: Love should be multiplied, not divided.

And this is my tale.

***Marks statements that are probably (most definitely) not true.

Halloween with Luke

2011-11-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Halloween? Not my favorite holiday. But I'll admit, it makes for the cutest childhood pictures. The youngest child in my family always got to be the clown, so I got the clown costume for two years:

With a childhood like that, I think it no small irony that I won the "Class Clown" award at the end of every school year clear until I graduated high school. The only exception was second grade. Instead I won the "Best at math" award because my teacher didn't want to encourage my shenanigans.

Please note, I finally got promoted to princess, but that there is still a representative clown:

A clown who looks thrilled to be alive, I might add.

Is it an unwritten family rule of the 80's that every youngest child was the clown? Because this was a truth for Jon's childhood as well:

So there ya go, 5 clown in 5 pictures (which actually ties with the number of Hawaiian punches...)

Moving on, for our Halloween Jon carved us a Jack-o-lantern:

We dressed Luke up as a little Tigger (thank you to the Landeens for the adorable costume!):Fun fact: Tiggers in the wild have a natural inclination towards dental hygiene:

Sharpening his paws on the upholstery---typical:

We only took Luke to 5 houses, but he made off pretty well:
There in front you'll notice that Luke received two unpackaged hostess doughnuts. And that, my friends, is why we love the elderly. Other honorable mentions are the package of top ramen and the "Holly Porter for city council" flier.

Showing off his box of milk-duds:

It was a fun Halloween with the little Luke. Hopefully the Tigger costume won't foreshadow his entire childhood like the clown costume did mine.

Because let's face it, if Luke had to choose his costume based on who he wants to grow up to be, we all know who he would have chosen:

Random Updates that basically boil down to this: Luke is still cute.

2011-10-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Luke's favorite toy lately is this sweet little ride:

He walks all over the place pushing it along with him. He can't walk without it, so I suppose it is the fastest way to get around.

We went on a walk and ran into our friends from the university and their little boy. Luke was so intrigued with their little boy that he wouldn't sit back in the stroller:

He looks like royalty peeking out of his carriage to observe the common-folk:

We literally walked five blocks with Luke doing this, it was so funny:
Someday we'll teach that kid manners about not staring at people and embarrassing the family.

Speaking of embarrassing the family, Jon walked around town dressed like Ben Franklin for some unknown reason:
I lied. The reason is known. It was for the Homecoming parade and I think he was actually George Washington. This was part of the Leavitt Center for Politics float.

Just me and Luke:

This was at the Homecoming football game. Luke caught that football:
(No he didn't, but we believe in giving our children false confidence.)

Taking Luke out to eat, and letting him eat the cucumbers off my salad:

Luke practicing to be in Elder's Quorum someday:

Sound asleep. He'll fit right in.

So this pear Luke is holding was his best friend f0r three days:
It was really quite weird how much he enjoyed holding that pear. They seemed so close that I almost felt bad feeding it to Luke a few days later:
Look at that smile. He has no clue he just ate his best friend.

This is what Luke does when we're out in public and he wakes up from a nap:
Lifts up his blanket to see if we're anywhere around. We think it's pretty funny. Not as funny as Charlie Bit my Finger or anything, but still funny.

"Oh hey Dad! Am I in this frame? Cause I can lean further over if you need me to!":

That kid is getting used to being the center of attention.

Luke standing in his crib, looking out the window at Jon:

Luke practicing the piano with me:

We had some friends over for a Refined Saturday Brunch Club (it's really elite--invitation only sort of thing). Luke ate more than anyone:

Also, that picture reminds me of the Last Supper for some reason.

Luke's First Football Game

2011-09-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

First home game of the season. It's not that we want to brainwash Luke into being an SUU fan, but we really have no other choice. Our son not cheer for the t-birds? What would people say?

Being in the stadium reminded me of my first year at SUU. I worked as an usher at the football games, and I remember standing in the stadium, staring at the red-rock mountains, wondering if I had made the biggest mistake of my life by going to SUU. (You would have wondered the same thing if you had to be yelled at by students and community members for a whopping $5.15 an hour). And now here I am, five years later, sitting in the same stadium with my husband and son. Life is weird like that.

Luke has a thing with his ears lately:
And I beat Luke at the "Who can stare into the sun longest" contest:
And while I sat being nostalgic about my married life, Jon tried to count up how many women he had kissed in the stadium. The jury's still out, but it was no small number, mind you.

Because in case you didn't know, back in the day kissing Jon McNaughtan was part of the SUU freshman experience. (and sometimes it was a part of the Cedar High School senior experience, but you didn't hear that from me).

Not that I care too much. Because in the end I'm sitting with this handsome man and our handsome offspring in that same stadium, even though it started to rain:
Luckily we brought along Luke's bomber gear:
Which he looked absolutley adorable in:
And in case you're wondering if Luke looks that good in every hat:

The answer is yes.

Creepy friends, failed goals, and Luke is funny

2011-08-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

So one of my friends, who we'll call by the alias of C. Edginton.....no, that's too long, let's call him Corbin E.--told me he checks my blog EVERY. DAY. for updates. Despite whether it's creepy or not, this is a shout out to him to see if he was telling the truth or if he's really a liar and a cheat.

Speaking of creepy people:

Our friend Jeff, who once lived with us, moved to Japan. We miss him. But when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby, it helps to know we're sleeping underneath the same big sky. (American Tale, anyone?)

Moving on, Luke likes to look at himself in the reflection of the tv:

He gets quite upset when there's actually something on the tv and he can't see himself. He's gonna be a primadonna, that one. (or is it primodonno?)

Did you know Cedar City is Festival City? It is. It's written on our city sign and everything. I swear our Main Street is closed for parade's more than it's open. We have the Cedar City Family Festival, The American Stampede, Festival of Homes, Groovefest, Cedar Arts Festival, July Jamboree, Heritage and Livestock Festival (since when do you celebrate your heritage and livestock in the same event?), Neil Simon festival, Paiute Powwow, Renaissance Fair, Thunderbird Film Festival, Utah Summer games, Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Wildflower festival.....

It borders on ridiculous, really.

Well Jon and I set a goal to go to all the festivals this summer and take pictures to make a really cool blog post about (No, we don't plan our outings around a blog post *eye shift* Why? Did I make it sound like we do?), but we ended up only going to three. The Powwow, which I've already posted. Groovefest:

Where you'll meet more hippies and breathe in more weed than on your average day in Portland (Prime hippie example hovering right there behind Luke).

And the July Jamboree:

Wherein they close main street so everyone can show off their fancy schmancy cars. And when Jon doesn't shave for three days and gets more comments from passerby's than the cars do. (Nobody feels comfortable around a 6'5 disheveled man.)

Unrelated topic switch: Sometimes Luke tries to crawl away from his bath but his hooded towel frustrates his plan:
It upsets him quite a bit.

Our friends let us borrow a jumperoo for Lukas:

He goes crazy in it! These were the only two pictures I could get that weren't blurred from him jumping.
Thanks to the Jackson's for being so generous as to let us borrow it.

And just as a side note, as I was writing this post Luke came up and did this:

And his reaction was this:

And I just sat here and took pictures of it all. Yer welcome.

Las Vegas Mission Memories

2011-08-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we drove to Las Vegas because Lourdes, a woman from Jon's mission, was visiting the states. So we drove down for a happy reunion. This is us in Lourdes' sister's home in Las Vegas:

Jon's companion, Sean, also drove down:
They loved seeing each other and catching up on each others lives.

Lourdes' family loved Luke. She told us that her niece LOVES babies, and she would be so excited to see Luke. Well, her 7-year old niece finally woke up and when she sat next to me I said, "I hear you love to play with babies."

She gave a long look at Luke and finally said, "Well, usually I play with babies the same color as me." Long awkward silence while she goes into deep thought. Finally she says, "Sometimes I like playing with white babies."

And then we both ominously stared at Luke wondering if he was going to make the cut.

She did end up playing with Luke a lot and I think they both liked it.

That night we took Lourdes to see the Las Vegas temple before we said goodbye. This is Jon, Luke, and I standing in front of the temple:

And Jon, Lourdes, and Luke:

As always, our trip home from Las Vegas ended with an intense discussion about the popularity of Las Vegas. We just. don't. get it. We were very happy to leave the heat of the city behind us.

Anyway, we were very grateful to be able to visit with Lourdes before she headed back to Saipan. It's always fun to catch up with old friends.

The Cantrell's Come to Town

2011-07-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

My sister and her family came to visit us in Cedar City. I've been wanting to take Kimberly on the Kanarraville Falls hike ever since I first went my freshmen year. It is by far my favorite hike in Southern Utah.

This is us at the bottom of the trail eating lunch before we go. Pretty sure I just told Kelsey she could only have one piece of candy:

Scenes from the trail:

A lot of the hike is just walking up the river. About halfway up you have to climb this log. Here's Spencer helping the kiddo's get up:
Luke isn't so sure about this place:
Here's the water slide you end up at:
I have never been there when the water was running so fast! So the slide was a little too scary for most of us. Jon and Spencer went down it a few times, and Kimberly gave it a try. The rest of us (ya know, me and the kids) just played in the water.
The hike back down:

Climbing down the log is a lot scarier than climbing up the log. Kimberly's kids treated it like it was no big deal though:
I just like this little boy:

The entire hike was more difficult than it has in the past. Now that we're out of a drought the running water is a lot more difficult to climb up. But having four kids on the trail was a big part of it too. The hardest part, however, is that they don't let you drive up as far anymore, so that added about an hour of hiking on a hot, dusty, dirty road. Overall, it was about a 3-4 hour hike, and Braden led the pack the majority of the time. I was really impressed with all of Kimberly's kids finishing it in good spirits.

Our next day of adventures started at Cedar Breaks:

And then we headed to Bryce where we rode their shuttle through the park. It was super rainy all day, which was kind of a bummer since we didn't go prepared for rain. We were scrounging to find everyone a jacket to wear. As a result we didn't get to do any of the really cool hikes.

Here's Will and Luke on the shuttle. Will LOVED sitting by Luke wherever we were and being his designated best friend:
Jon and Kimberly on the shuttle:

Me and Kelsey (she only sits by me because she knows I have candy in my purse):

Bryce Canyon:

So the canyon was originally settled by Ebenezer Bryce. Can you imagine just settling in an area like that and having those rocks as your backyard?
When Ebenezer was asked what it was like to have the canyon right there he said, "It's a hell of a place to lose a cow." Yeah, I imagine it would be.
This is a shout out to Will, who despite all of his mother's best efforts, still managed to sneak into one of our family shots:
Haha :) Gotta love it.

So I guess we never got a picture of all of us there together.....shoot.

We had a ton of fun having them stay with us. The morning and nights were filled with some pretty tough competitions on the Wii playing Super Mario Brothers and Guitar Hero. (Not to brag, but you may be reading from the Guitar Hero champ right now) (But some sources indicate that Spencer may have also won a few times....).The days were filled with seeing the sights. Good times had by all.

More people should come down and vacation with us. We're a rockin' good time, if I do say so myself.

No Stories, Just Pictures

2011-07-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Luke's first time swimming:

Luke asleep on our couch:

Playing with Dad:

My favorite picture:

Eating solids for the first time:

At the Draft party seeing who the Jazz picked:

Just hanging out with Dad:
And because he's cute:

The Elephant Graveyard

2011-06-25T08:49:00.001-07:00

I have never understood the fetish with vacationing in St. George. And since I'm in the business of offending, let's not leave out Mesquite, Las Vegas, and Reno.

They're deserts, people.

As in, if Mufasa were holding Simba up on the Wasatch Mountains introducing him to all that someday will be his, he would single out these areas and say, "Except for those. They're not elephant graveyards, but trust me, you just don't want 'em."

But somehow, against all that is natural, otherwise rational human beings have been convinced to spend their spare time in wallowing heat, and count it as their privilege.

With that being said, Jon and I spent our last weekend vacationing in St. George--"seeing the sights" as they say. Our morning started by strapping Lukas in his stroller and hiking through Snow Canyon:

It. Was. Hot. But the red rocks are pretty. The formations actually remind me of Goblin Valley:

Snow Canyon features black, white, and red rocks all co-existing in peaceful harmony:
They set an example for the human race.

Jon took this picture because it looks like the head and trunk of an elephant--further proving my elephant graveyard theory:

So here's something kind of funny:

Stay on the trail? Yeah, cause we wouldn't want to harm these rare landscapes:

And just so you know, that only applied to humans. Animals and humans riding horses were allowed off the trail. Rude.

Jon trying his hand at photography:

He'll probably start an amateur photography business on the side pretty soon. You'll be invited to like his Facebook page in the near future.

It may seem mean now, but Luke will thank us someday for taking pictures like this:

So Jon got tired of seeing this rest station that wasn't accessible for us measly humans who were walking on our own two feet and had to stay on the paved trail. So he was a champion of the people and took the horse trail:

But c'mon, this stroller was made for off-roading:

And I'm sure our stroller tracks will leave no suspicion. If they come after us we'll just blame it on this guy:

He, after all, is allowed off the trail. Makes sense.

Once we got to the rest stop, Jon bid us farewell:

And when he returned he read the rules of the park:
We wanted to have a thorough knowledge of the ones we had broken so far.

But guess what--while off the trail Jon found this:

Evidence that man had trekked there before.

And we finally said goodbye to the canyon:

While leaving we got stuck behind this hearse, and Jon said, "Great, these always go dead slow!"
Jon told me not to write that though, insisting that he could think of a better pun.

A "better pun"? Is that an oxymoron or just naively optimistic?

After the canyon we went to the St. George Temple visitor center:
And then to Brigham Young's summer home:

They were both fun stops. The winter home tour is a little long for how hot it is in that house, but still cool.

And there ends our day in the desert.

Random Moments

2011-06-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Our good friend Cody got a very nice job offer in Arizona, so we had a farewell dinner for him at Cedar City's new bbq place, Sonny Boys (it's SO good!)

We ordered their "Super King"--the sandwich you see above is a quarter of it, and Jeff has a 1/4 of it in his hands. The Asian tourists took like a billion pictures of it.

I wouldn't recommend ordering it. Look at the bread they use:
Super thick, and super not that good. It was like a dry wonder bun on steroids. Their regular sandwiches are amazing though!

We will miss Cody. We wish him happiness and romance in Arizona.

This weekend was Southern Utah's Pow wow, held in Cedar City:
There wasn't a lot going on by the time we got there, but Luke still looked cute.
(That's a single tear running down his cheek, after he saw someone litter).

We went bowling. Jon won. Tale as old as time.:
But Jon did take Bowling 1000 in college (twice!), so this is just his college degree paying off.

Luke brought his own ball:
Someday Luke. Someday.
And when that someday comes, licking the janky bowling balls will not be allowed:
So enjoy it now, kid.

My cute boys watching tv:

We have been going on a lot of walks lately. Gotta love when the baby refuses to be in the stroller.

Pushing an empty stroller is actually a favorite past time anyway. So the joke's on you, Luke.

The McNaughtan's Go to Zion

2011-05-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last week Jon surprised me by taking a day off from work for a well deserved vacation.

(But if you want to be technical about it, the school actually surprised Jon by telling him if he did not take his paid vacation day, he would lose the chance to use it....meh, let's just give the credit to Jon)

So we traveled to the great backyard of Southern Utah, and visited Zion National park:

We stopped on the top of the mountain ridge that overlooks the park:
Luke just slept the whole time:
We also stopped in Orderville! Utah Trivia: Why is it called Orderville?

Answer: It's the last town in Utah to live the Law of Consecration, which finally ended because some ruffigan teenager went to another town to buy himself a pair of jeans. At least that is what some old Cedar City native told me once....sooo, check your source before you spread that around.

Besides their history of righteous communism (yeah, I said it), Orderville has an abnormal amount of rock shops. Rock shops that have flinstone cars:

A competing rock shop across the street from the flinstone one:
And yet another rock shop down the street from those two:
I don't know...I just thought it was weird.

We also stopped at Moqui Cave, at which point Luke decided to join us:
We dressed him up like a little explorer:

So Moqui Cave was found by a Southern Utah family in the 40's, and they ran it as a dance hall and pub! Can you imagine--your local dance hall being in a cave!?:

We took our eye off of Luke for one minute and this is where we found him:

The pub--we'll have to keep our eye on that one. (Nevermind those maternal-looking hands that seem to be holding him there, they were probably snatching him away before he could order anything)

The pub in the cave:
Luke and Jon in the pub:
This is the dance hall part of the cave:
I emphasize again--how cool would that be!? (Our cute little tour guide said it is where rock-n-roll originated--Ha! Get it!? Rocks!)

Some creepy, plastic Indian:
Eh, it is a cool little stop. If you are ever on your way to Kanab, it is a nice and short tour.

By that point we were ready for lunch so we stopped at the Thunderbird Restaurant in Mt. Carmel, which is the famous because....:
That's right, it's the Home of the Ho-Made Pies! Legend has it their sign was originally supposed to say "Home-Made" but they didn't have room, so they shortened it and ran with the theme.

Pretty good food, but not for the price. Get a coupon off of restaurants.com if you ever go there.

Our cute little explorer got so much attention from the Asian tour group that was there. They were pinching his cheeks and laughing at him (in a good way, I think):

And how could they not? I mean, look at this face!:

And finally we were on our way to the park. The ever-so-long Zion tunnel:
I must have a lot of my Dad's engineering blood in me, because the length of the tunnel makes my mind fill with questions every time. How much time did this take? How many men!? Do they have a back-up generator!?!?

Once you are in the park they have a really nice shuttle service that takes you around to all the hot spots in the park while telling you what your seeing. Luke and Jon on the shuttle:

Luke and Jon getting ready to do our first hike to Weeping Rock:

Ah, this boy, I love him!:
This is us at Weeping Rock (I love Luke's little eyes peeking over the side):

Here is a good shot where you can see the "weeping":

Aaaand, here's the rest of the pictures from our other hikes:

All in all, it was a fun day in Zion! (Note Luke just sitting in his backpack-chair in the background of that last picture--haha) It always surprises me how many people have traveled from across the world to be there. And they all loved Luke. We heard in so many accents, "So young! And already in Zion!"

Our final stop for the day was on our way home at this quirky little.... I don't even know what to call it....a funny town? I want to say theme park but there wasn't any rides, just a theme.

I just asked Jon and he called it "A mock-up of a ghost town"....?
Anyway, we bought some prickly-pear fudge there. What is a prickly pear anyway? All I know is it tastes like strawberry.

At least in the fudge form.

Random Pictures To Enjoy

2011-05-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

No story behind this post--just feel the need to share some of these moments with the world:

Luke watching TV with Jon:

Jon and I cleaned out our study. In doing so it came time to part with this handmade snowglobe Jon made me one Valentine's Day when we were dating:
It used to be a car with snow to remind me of all the fun drives we had been on. The water has turned all gross, the car didn't stay glued down, the lid was starting to bulge--quite frankly we were scared it had turned into a bomb. So we took a picture, and bid farewell.

Ya know that tradition where you eat the top layer of your wedding cake on your one year anniversary? So yeah, our one year anniversary was eight months ago, but we're just barely eating our wedding cake:
It was still good! Thanks mom!

Jon with Lukas at my parents house, cameo appearance of Derek:
Luke eating with Jon:
Luke sleeping:
He is obsessed with his hands. When I was pregnant we never got an ultrasound picture of his face because his hand was always in the way. When he's relaxed this is inevitably how his hand ends up.

Hands Exhibit B:

For Mother's Day Jon made me pizza and a smoothie--two of my favorite foods! It was absolutely delicious!
The Utah Summer Games moved offices and had an opening party for their new space. The Jazz bear was there, so we got a picture with him and Luke:

Life is the best. The end!

Four Years Coming Up! (Dave Mac--there's a pic of you in this one--incentive to keep reading)

2011-04-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Jon and I went on our first date April 19th, 2007. It was a good date--the steamy hot, love at first site, tale-as-old-as-time kind of first date. In fact, a year after our first date, when we had both (kinda) moved onto dating other people, Jon casually mentioned to me and a group of people that it had been the last really amazing date he had been on.

Which made an awkward silence go over the whole room, cause that's not really the sort of thing you casually mention to an ex-girlfriend.

And so shortly thereafter we un-ex-girlfriend/boyfriended each other and started dating again, which led to our happy marriage now. I say what better way to commemorate our 4 year mark of love than with a forever long blog post?

......(cricket noises?)...... I take your silence as agreement. So enjoy this conglomeration of photos from the last two months:

We blessed Luke:

Better yet, Jon blessed Luke, I took notes (and Luke's apparently bored with the affair altogether)

My Mom made his little blessing outfit out of the leftover material from my wedding dress (which she also made):

Speaking of cute outfits, a woman visiting SUU from Afghanistan gave us these outfits for Luke:

Surprisingly, I think we'll actually have a few events that Luke will be able to wear this to:

This is Q, the woman who gave us the outfits:

She was on campus to speak at an academic conference Jon was putting together. She left an abusive arranged marriage in Afghanistan a while back and decided to go to college (at UCLA--she was the valedicatorian). She talked about the importance of women getting education.

This is Oliver, he was another speaker at the conference:

He is the founder of Skatistan, a program that takes kids off the streets of Afghanistan and teaches them to skateboard. Sounds kinda weird, but it's actually really cool. Here's a video for education sake. It might make you cry. Twice.

After the conference was over, we bought some last minute tickets to see Brian Regan at the SUU Centrum:

Here we are waiting for the show to start:

So, yeah, I know that picture looks like Luke is giving up on life, laying face down in that blanket and all. But before you judge our parental supervision, this is what it looked like from our angle:

Pure cuteness, that's what.

After the show (which was hilarious!) we went to Winger's with our friends and let Luke meet the gang*:

* Actual "Gang" not pictured--just Luke with the menu

Jon was asked to present an award at the T-bird awards. It's a formal event so we dressed Luke up in the SUU-colored suit my sister gave us:

A few weeks back, Jon's brother Mike and his kids stayed the night with us on their way to St. George. This is Jon's niece holding Luke:

It was fun to have them--especially since it gave Jon some fresh competition for Mario Cart:

Um...this picture is just cute:
As is this one:

This last weekend Jon's nephew (who is older than him--figure that one out) was blessing his baby in Vegas, so we took a little vacation. Here's Jon's sister Lori (the new grandma!) holding Luke:

Here's a four generation picture of Ryan (Jon's nephew), his new baby girl with TONS of hair, Lori, and Jon's amazing mom:
While is Vegas we got to celebrate Dave's birthday (he's Jon's brother). He was pleasant company as always:
I think he turned like a billion or something--I might be rounding up though.

And here's Jon's wonderful mom with her first great-grandchild!
I'm just dying over how much hair that baby has. So cute!

Life is good, life is good. And I feel as if our 4-year love affair is officially commemorated.

15 Things about Me (Us!)

2011-03-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

It's our first family picture! We got all dressed up for church--Luke is even wearing a tie made for him by our talented neighbor from Stanford, Sara Jackson.

My beautiful and very talented sister-in-law Brittney tagged me in her blog to tell 15 things about myself. It's only taken me a month to think of 15 things. And I made them about both me and Jon. Enjoy! (Don't worry, pictures of the cute one are spread throughout)

1. Jon and I have never voted in an election where we haven't cancelled out at least one of each other's votes.

2. I can't sit through a movie or tv show without doing something else at the same time, or else I feel too guilty for wasting time. Jon will sit through ANY movie or tv show after he's paid attention to it for more than 5 seconds. Consequently, I never have to watch "girl" movies alone.

3. Both Jon and I are horrible online shoppers. I impulse buy clothes and work out videos, Jon impulse buys on toys, games, and movies (mostly Disney). We'll both impulse buy on books.

4. Both Jon and I are big savers. We would both rather put extra money in the bank than find something to spend it on.

5. Jon is like, a really good cook. He made Parmesan chicken perfectly on his first try. And he makes the best Muddy Buddies in the world. I can cook because my mom is a super homemaker and I grew up watching her cook. It never occurred to me that something couldn't be homemade, because my mom made everything. I always felt bad for roommates who thought you needed a brownie mix to make brownies.

6. The first three times Jon asked me out I thought he was dating someone--which is why I said no two of those times.

7. Jon loves to plan surprises, but couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. He often asks me for my opinion about a surprise he's planning for me under the agreement that I'll still act surprised when it happens.

8. Every night before we go to bed, Jon and I tell each other a reason why we love each other. I'm a little more immature than Jon, because sometimes I don't feel like it and will pretend like I'm asleep. Even when I do that Jon will still whisper a reason why he loves me.

9. Both Jon and I talk about getting our Ph.D's. Mine would be in women's studies and Jon's would be in education--possibly with an emphasis on sociology. I would research Muted Group Theory or Standpoint Theory, and Jon might research community colleges--which is what a lot of his master's research was focused on.

10. If Jon and I go to bed without talking to each other, it's most likely because a board game went bad. It usually only lasts 20 minutes before one of us cuddles up to the other person.

11. Jon and I love playing games together: Sequence, 2-person bridge, Ticket to Ride, Settler's of Catan, Carcasonne, Skip Bo---to name a few. After playing so many games with just the two of us, playing with other people gets really annoying because it takes so long.

12. For Jon's birthday he invited a bunch of friends over for a party. For my birthday we were going to go out to dinner but ended up laying in bed eating a homemade cheeseball while watching Netflix. Each celebration method fits our personality/preferences exactly.

13. If Jon and I had to separately list our top 5 most embarrassing moments, both of our lists would include more incidents of peeing our pants than we would like to admit.

14. When we take the 3 hour drive up north, we often get to Nephi and realize we haven't had music/radio on the whole time because we've been talking to each other (yeah, we're best friends like that). Upon this realization, an awkward silence usually follows as we both try to remember what we've been talking about.

15. Jon will sometimes drink milk past it's expiration date. Sure, it may still be good, but you still have to taste it to find out, and there's always a chance it's gonna be bad. That's one game of Russian Roulette I'm not willing to play, my friends.

And She's Having a Baby Too!

2011-02-19T20:50:00.001-08:00

Our Valentines Weekend plans were saved (because we forgot to plan anything) when I went into labor early. I started feeling contractions at 9:30 Friday night, but wasn't sure what they were. So I called my sister and she confirmed I was probably having contractions, and coached me as to when I should check into the hospital and such.

Well, you're supposed to check in when your contractions are 2-4 minutes apart and have been getting consistently closer and stronger. All through the night I had contractions 6-10 minutes apart. These shenanigans continued until noon the next day, and never got close enough for me to go to the hospital. So at 12:30 in the afternoon (that's 15 hours of contractions, people--count 'em) we finally just went to the hospital because I was really tired from being up all night and wanted to know what was going on. To my pleasant surprise, I was dilated to an 8! And before we knew it, ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, we had a baby! (Not really, it still took another 4 hours, but who's counting?)

And let me tell you, those babies really love being weighed:

A week and a half early and our little champ weighed 8 lbs 1 oz.

Luke Lyman McNaughtan:

We tried to get one of those "first family pictures" that everyone gets in the hospital, but we forgot to put the baby in it:
Oops.

Our friend Dennis Busch saw one of these pictures of Luke in his little bed thing and said "Who knew babies come in tupperware?" Baha!

After we brought him home from the hospital:

Let's take a break for cuteness:

Jon is, how do you say, the best dad ever?
Every night he reads to Luke before he goes to bed:
It's basically the cutest thing ever.

Thank goodness my angel mother came to spend a few days with us, and taught us the basics of caring for a human (she has successfully done it, ten times over) This was after coaching me through his bath:
Oh yes, and she informed us that we weren't supposed to take those baby blankets home from the hospital. Our bad. But in our defense, the hospital could have been a little more clear about that.

After his bath, getting his hair combed:
It's his favorite thing ever.

And here I am, proud as a peacock that I've cleaned a baby while keeping him in one piece:
Can you tell he's my child? Just look at his blossoming pleasant demeanor:

And after my mom left, Jon's mom came:

And she's pretty much made sure we'll eat like king's for the next week. Luke sure is lucky to have such wonderful Grandparents!

Oh and this cool couple stopped by:
Dave and Liz Heywood (Dave is a long-time friend of Jon). They look kinda natural with a baby, no?

Well, as my nephew Braden once told me, if you don't like a new baby "just send 'em back to the hostible." (said with a lisp, of course). I think me and Jon have decided to keep him though.

The Christmas, Baby, New Year Update

2011-01-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Jon and I haven't really taken a lot of pictures lately--mostly because we're really busy and tired all of the time. And what's the point of blogging if there's no pictures to include? Everybody knows that if there's no pictures it didn't really happen.

So here's the brief update: Jon is still working part time at the Leavitt Center for politics. For their semester service project they helped set up Christmas at the local rest home:

And service-oriented Jon also played in the school's wheelchair basketball tournament. I think it was for a good cause, but I'm really not sure:

There's so many things about that picture that make me laugh. The awkward angle on the girl, how natural Jon looks sitting in a wheelchair.....love it.

As for Jon's internship, he finished up his six months with the Provost and got moved to Student Services--which is where I work, so we're in the same office suite now--it's kinda fun. He's re-designing the judicial affairs system, and in doing so gets to meet with all the students who get caught drinking, doing drugs, being mean to their roommates, etc.

Jon is also teaching an institute class this semester--the first half of the Book of Mormon. His first class was last night, and it went wonderfully. The participation of his institute class was a welcome change to the blank stares he usually receives during his Gospel Doctrine class. All in all, Jon is really busy--but that's how he's always liked it.

As for me, my job will be ending on Friday, at which time Jon will inherit my office. That's nice, because now I really don't have to clean out my desk...or those Mike and Ikes that spilled under my table two months ago. My boss still has a few things for me to finish up at home, but for the most part I will be done on Friday and can get ready for the arrival of el nino (that's Spanish for "the nino").

I'm also doing classes again this semester, so I'll be spending the next couple of weeks trying to finish up as much of those classes as I can.

Once again, I have no pictures of my stomach to post. It's not like I'm deliberately avoiding having any pictures of my pregnancy taken--I just haven't gone out of my way to take any. And even though maternity shoots are the big deal right now, if you think you'll ever get me and Jon to pose in something like this:

....well, you're wrong. Jon's more dead set against posing with my pregnant stomach than I am.

I could probably get him to agree to do a photo shoot like this:
but I kind of feel like this picture is an example of weekend visitation rights gone wrong.

Little Luke Jay McNaughtan (or Max....Jon's starting to like Max) will be joining us somewhere around February 22. We found out that his head, and only his head, is in the 99th percentile.

I blame Jon.

Meanwhile, my midwife has given me some reading material to help me decide whether I want an epidural or to deliver natural. The reading includes ways to cope with the pain in either circumstance. The natural delivery methods include fascinating suggestions like the following:

"It may be helpful to focus on an encouraging phrase. One woman chose to think of herself as the Little Engine That Could, and as a contraction mounted she would repeat to herself, "I think I can, I think I can." As the contraction subsided she would repeat, 'I thought I could, I thought I could.'"

Ironically, that kind of makes me want to get an epidural in my brain, in hopes that I can forget that image altogether.

Anyway, Jon and I have had the opportunity to drive around Southern Utah a lot lately, which has allowed us to see things like this:

This was our attempt to get a picture with us AND the pretty sunset--but apparently mother nature is an only child and doesn't share the spotlight very well:

We're enjoying seeing the sights of Southern Utah, and even bought an annual pass for all the Federal Reserves--which includes Zion's, Bryce, Timpanogos, Grand Canyon, etc. We drove through Zion's just last week with it, and quite enjoyed ourselves. Utah is a very pretty state.

As for Christmas, we only took two pictures. The first is of our tree:

And this is me on Christmas morning at our house--which we actually celebrated early since we were going to be with family over Christmas:

Jon got a lot of Disney movies, some cd's, clothes, and a book to help him learn piano. The last present was pertinent because Jon got me a piano for my Christmas present! It's old, and I have to stop in the middle of a song and fix the keys a lot, but I love it! SOOOO much better than having an electric piano!

Welp, I suppose that's all for now. I'm going to be honest with myself and just admit that this is probably the last post until the baby comes--but strange things could happen.

Halloween Tales and UltraSound Pic

2010-11-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

First things first--there's been some pregnancy picture requests. Sorry, I haven't gotten one of my stomach yet--I always forget. I did get an ultrasound pic though:

It's a boy! The baby boy pictured above, however, isn't our boy. He's just one I found on google. We actually don't have any ultrasound pics of our little boy, but you wouldn't have known this one wasn't him if I hadn't told you, right? Which is why we've not gone out of our way to get ultrasound pictures--they all look the same, people! I can't be the only one who has noticed this....

Moving onto Halloween: Jon and I made our annual dinner in a pumpkin. Jeffery ate with us, since he does live with us. Jon told us both to look at the camera, and in an act of defiance I stared at the wall instead. Jon didn't notice, so my wall-staring picture is the only one we have of our Halloween feast:

This year we tried butternut squash soup--which I've never previously liked, but I thought I might like it if it were served from a pumpkin.

I was mistaken. Butternut soup is just butternut soup--regardless of serving dish. It was just alright.

We also made fall punch, and stuffed mushrooms (so good!), and dirt pie (not real dirt, c'mon).

Saturday night our friends hosted a party over at our house:

Above, we're getting ready to play a little round of "Battle of the Sexes". Below are the party hosts, The Hooley's:

Lauren is dressed as a troll, Dirk is some random guy he once saw in a picture with Tiger Woods.

Dirk and Lauren provided presents for us to play White Pumpkin (known as White Elephant during other major holiday seasons), where Jon was lucky enough to win Trump, the boardgame (which we had ironically been eyeing earlier that day at the D.I.)

Some of the other guests:

We had an apple bobbing competition. Here's Jon getting ready to do it:

I won't say whether Jon won or lost, but I will say that at least 3 girls bobbed more apples than he did. I'm just sayin.

And no party with the Hooley's is really a party without plenty of delicious meats and cheeses:

Jon and I ran out of time to get costumes so we just dressed up as Faith Hill and Tim McGraw:
Which is funny because in Cedar City most people are changing out of their cowboy clothes for Halloween.

And for a final picture: the donut-from-a-string eating competition.

Jon didn't win this one either. That darn Jeff did. Next year, Jon. Next year.

Mom--I just wanted you to know that after your frank conversation with me about getting gestational diabetes, I didn't participate in the donut competition. If our baby ends up being under 9 lbs, thank you for the advice. If he still ends up being huge, you owe me a donut.

New Renter

2010-10-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

So we got a new renter in our basement....

.....except he doesn't really ever stay in the basement:

Meet Jeff Kinsel*. A lesser woman would get jealous about the above sleeping arrangement, but it's okay, because I told Jon last week I was no longer going to sleep with him in the water bed since it was starting to give me back problems. So we've been sleeping all I Love Lucy style:

It didn't take long after my move to the floor for a new mattress to become Jon's top priority.

And just in case it seemed like I was joking, Jeff really is staying in our basement. He got a temporary job at SUU and didn't want to get wound up in a housing contract, so we let him stay in our basement. No contract for him, a little extra money** for us. Everyone is happy.

Life is good, life is good.

*This photo was for entertainment purposes only and does not accurately reflect reality.

**No money has actually been received yet.

More Mutton, and Our Anniversary

2010-09-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

(Jenna and Taren are personally invited NOT to read this post. It's not up to my "usual standards" as you two would like to say)

Yes, we had more Mutton. For a religious event again. SUU had a huge increase in Saudi students (we have around 70 I think it is). So our Provost planned an Iftar for them.

I'm not exactly sure what Iftar is, but I know it has something to do with the end of Ramadan, when they have been fasting, and Iftar is a sort of event to break that fast....I think.

Here's the Provost welcoming everybody to dinner before excusing the Saudi's to pray:

Islam has a special kind of meat--kind of like Kosher. The lamb needs to be killed in a certain way for it to be acceptable. So somebody in the community volunteered to slaughter a lamb according to Islamic standards so they could have it at the Iftar.

Here's a picture of me and Jon while we were waiting for the Saudi's to get back from prayer:

My mouth is full of cheese and crackers, because Jon kept on taking my food when I wasn't looking, and as far as I was concerned, a picture was a long enough distraction for him to strike again--so I ate it before he could. (He does it because he's too busy talking to people to go to the buffet table. I, on the other hand, do not value people above dinner).

Anyway, I don't like mutton that much. That's my final opinion.

Moving on--Jon and I had our one year anniversary. We went up to Castle Creek Inn to celebrate.

This is us walking around on their grounds--which are really pretty.

See--the grounds are pretty. It's been the best year of my life, people, the best year of my life.

Well, sorry this was choppy, but I'm in class and my professor keeps on calling on me--because he suspects I'm not typing about the class lecture. Very keen, that professor.

A Mutton Feed and an Unexpected Guest

2010-08-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

Oh hello. It's been a while. But you see, we've been moving, and starting new jobs, and driving up north every weekend....we just haven't had a lot of time on our hands. It's not you, it's us.

Anyway, everything has been great! Jon's been getting all cozy in his new office:

As Associate Director of the Leavitt Center for Politics, Jon gets to sit after the manner of the Michael O. Leavitt portrait every day (only Jon smiles). Does he demand respect? You wouldn't believe.

Jon and I both start our Master's classes this week: mine for Communications, Jon's for Public Administration. We took advantage of our last weekend before classes and attended our ward's annual Mutton Feed!

I was surprised that I was the only one who laughed when they announced such an event in sacrament meeting. The name Mutton Feed is hysterical enough (am I the only one thinking of a group gathered around a feeding trough?), but the fact that it's ANNUAL!!! HA!

It was actually pretty fun though. The old timers of the ward informed us that this has been a tradition since the 70's! Mutton is sheep, by the way. It came in two varieties: patties and ribs. And it was actually quite tasty, although they also had chicken for the weak-of-stomach.

Well, since we were in the canyon for the ward party anyway, as we left we decided to drive up to the C on the mountain.

We used to have picnics up there together when we were dating. Ahh! Cute!

It was really windy though.

Which inspired me to tell Jon that I had never flown a kite.

And Jon, in his usual manner of trickery and surprises, just happened to have two kites in the trunk.

I know, what are the chances?

So we drove down to Park Discovery (where we had our first kiss---Ahh!! Even cuter!!) so Jon could end my streak of kite deprivation.

Jon got Shamu up and flying in no time:

Look at the ease in which he handles that kite:

He doesn't even have to look at it! The smile of a truly skilled kite-flying artist.

His apprentice, on the other hand, was not getting along so well with her sting ray:

Just like a creature of the sea--give false hope and then nose-dive on down.

So Jon switched me kites, and guess what? Turns out that Shamu flying high had nothing to do with skill:

Shamu's just a free-spirit, that's all.

So Jon struggled with Mr. Sting Ray for a while, and then this little creature appeared and started coaching him on the ways of flying kites:

She wouldn't talk to me. In fact every time I asked if she would like to try and fly Shamu she'd say it was time for her to go home and she'd run a ways off.

But she always came back to stand right next to Jon:

And wherever Jon went, she went:

Until we both had to face it--Jon had a little shadow buddy for the night:

Well it was getting pretty dark, so as Jon started packing away the kite. She helped him by bunching the entire thing into a ball.

Helpful indeed.

And then she even took the liberty of taking my kite away and giving it to Jon:

Sure, it was funny. As she followed us to our car, however, it ceased to be as funny, so we walked back to the park hoping someone would claim her. We thought since by this point she was holding Jon's hand someone would quickly identify her and rescue her from the strangers. Not the case. We had to ask parents individually if they knew who she belonged to. Finally one couple pointed to who they thought her mom was (a woman who had walked past us several times), and when we asked her she turned her head and said, "Yeah, she's mine. Why? Did she try to go home with you?"

Keep in mind, she was still holding Jon's hand at this point.

It all just goes to show, some parents don't mind when their children try to sneak off with strangers.

A Full Month in One Post

2010-06-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, let's keep this short and sweet.

Jon and I spent some time in Sacramento before we left California, and his mom drove out to meet us:

On our way back to Stanford, we stopped to see Sutter's Fort.
Riveting, simply riveting.

I also spilled my Sobe drink on Jon's keyboard:
Don't worry, it didn't fry the computer or anything, but I did have to learn how to remove and clean laptop keys so they'd stop sticking. Success was mine.

We enjoyed many delicious meals together, one of the best was right on Stanford's campus at California Cafe:
My parents joined us and we all toured San Francisco together (including seeing Wicked):

Then came Jon's graduation. He was asked to carry the flag in the procession line:

Because he's a big deal. That's why.

Jon being hooded by his short advisor, bless her heart:

Jon and I after the ceremony:

Then Stanford fed us a ton. They had huge buffet lines for every body to partake of. That's why it's worth it to pay tens of thousands of dollars for your education (a sarcastic font would be useful right here).

Our last picture at Stanford before starting the drive to Utah:
Yes, I did get to sit cross legged the whole time.

Luckily Jon's mom knew of some fun stops to take to break up the 13 hour drive. Like this little treasure in Fillmore:
Kinda scary artwork, no?

And now we're currently living in our friends duplex waiting for our housing to come through. We still haven't even unpacked, which explains why Jon butters his bread with a butcher knife:

We're currently in the process of buying this house:
Sure, it doesn't look like much on the outside, but look at that kitchen:
The house doesn't need a new roof, or new carpets, or newly painted walls, or functional windows--so far it's the only house we've looked at that we can actually move into after buying it. That's a nice feature. We should be able to move into it in the next two weeks. Awesome! Even better is that house payments in Cedar City are for the most part cheaper than rent. Thank you dropping house market.

Anyway, Jon starts work tomorrow, and I start in two weeks. Back to life as usual I suppose.

Last Day of Work, and Mission Memories

2010-06-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

I had my last day of work this Friday. It has been so great getting to know the family I've been working with. Even though the first day of work Catherine told me not to approach her on her left side (she can't even remember why she told me that) and I thought she was 100% crazy, over the last nine she's redeemed herself to only be 30% crazy and 70% one of my best friends here in California.

The more those percentages changed over the last nine months, the more Jon was worried about me, but I've run the numbers several times and the math checks out. 30/70.

For our going away present Catherine got me and Jon a gift certificate to a spa, and then had us over for dinner for one of her huge, fabulous, healthy meals. I've never been so full and so satisfied.

Here's some pictures we took at the spa. What she got for us was a personal bath room. Really nice! It's not gross like a big bath house or sauna where you sit around with strangers and awkwardly watch each other sweat. It was really classy and relaxing and you had the whole room to yourself!

Here's me in front of the hot tub:

Jon sitting in the hot tub:

Our own sauna inside our room:

Pardon the no make-up on my part. I figured it was all going to come off anyway.

And because I know you didn't get enough the first time, more Jon in the hot tub:

The tub you can see next to the hot tub is a cold plunge--ice cold water for when you get too hot in the tub or sauna. Probably the funniest experience of the night was watching Jon get in it, then freaking out cause it was so cold, and then slipping on the ladder several times as he was trying to get out. I could not stop laughing.

Anyway, Catherine rented the room for us for a whole hour and a half! It was so wonderful! And so much fun!

The dinner they had for us was funny because the twins I watched every day are OBSESSED with Jon. Every day when we went to the park they would argue over who got to marry him. And at dinner they had to draw straws for who got to sit by him.

That's cool I guess.

All in all, it was such a good job for me to have while we've been out here in California.

In other news, one of the members from Saipan (one of the islands Jon was on for his mission) called Jon this week to catch up. Turns out he was working in San Jose this whole time, only thirty minutes away from us, and we didn't even know!

So we had him over for dinner tonight:

They had a lot of fun seeing each other again after some six years or something.

This is our last week in California. We have the privilege of having the one and only Jeff Kinsel out here for the next couple days, and then our parents will be coming out to see Jon's graduation and help us move back to Utah. It's going to be busy!

I can't believe our 9 months out here are already over.

Nine months. Enough time to have a baby. But we didn't.

Memorial Day: Here's to you, Dave McNaughtan

2010-06-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

First of all, random picture we have:

We really got into making donuts for a while. This was our final batch, right before we invited all our neighbors over to come eat.

Second of all, Memorial Day was fun. I did work--I forgot it was a holiday. I quickly remembered when it only took me five minutes to get to work because the roads were so empty.

Anyway, we had a bbq with our little grill we got for our wedding:
And made homemade ice-cream:

Why would we need Lysol wipes while barbequeing you ask?

Well....we're not really supposed to bbq on our balcony--supposedly there's a whole section in the rule book devoted to such shenanigans. I've not seen it myself, but I believe that it's in there. With all the smoke it created Jon was worried someone would pull the building fire alarm. For the unlikely event that this did happen, we were ready to wipe all finger prints off the grill and throw it off the balcony.

Nobody would ever suspect.

Third, and last, we've never specifically stated that we would take readers requests, but we've never said we wouldn't either, so I will grant my brother-in-laws request and mention him in this blog.

In fact, I'll gladly do it, because there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, Dave:

Never do this to my husband again.

Yet Another Fabulous Weekend

2010-05-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

We plan our Saturday's pretty seriously. The last couple have revolved heavily around yard sales. Which proved profitable this weekend with the following item:

An electric hang glider: $3.

Jon hoping my Dad will think he's cool: Priceless

After hitting a few yard sales, we drove to Felton, Ca to see the Redwoods:

Having to hike a little ways to see them, we were abruptly met with this sign:
Our first thoughts: Yeah right! We are humans! The wild life must bow before us!

But on second thought:
Those were really big horses! How 'bout I just walk in the grass while you take the trail, pal.

Potential Trampling Crisis averted:

And the horse walks off with all the power.

Hey Jon:

How about when you're with me you be with me. The boy can't resist his ringing phone

Or a tractor:
Whatever Jon.

Anyway, here's a fun game to play with a fallen Redwood tree:
This tree fell in 1934, so by counting the rings, what event happened around the time of the ring in the center of the tree (which I am pointing to)?

(Slow zoom in for increased anticipation):

Here it is:

Holy Moly! That's an old tree!

And that, my friends is:

The Tale of the Rings! (Thank you Jon for the dramatic presentation)

The visitors center had a place where you could make animal footprints. The ranger told me that it was mostly for kids:

But when Jon started doing it the ranger said, "We're really all just kids anyway though, huh."

In front of a Redwood:

Jon found the Cave of Wonders (post "touch nothing but the lamp"):
So many of the trees had caves in the trunk. It was kinda cool.

And the tree's were surprisingly easy to uproot:
(Jon's idea, not mine)

And then what can I say, Jon was feeling like a professional photographer and I was really connecting with the camera:
Work it! Work it!

But apparently my modeling skills aren't appealing enough, because again with the distractions:

The best find of our trip was this little gem by the road:

A Bigfoot museum!!! Dedicated to proving the reality of Bigfoot!

A sculpture of the legend himself, giving a piggy back to a small child:

The guy who runs the place was awesome. Older with long hair, long beard, fishing hat, suspenders. Probably has moonshine under the porch, too. We walked in just as he was telling another couple he doesn't talk about the times (plural) he's seen Bigfoot, because he doesn't like people laughing at his personal experiences. (Although I'm sure he would have loved nothing more than for us to ask him to tell us his story). It was a great little place. Very enjoyable.

After that short stop we were off to Santa Cruz where Jon's coworkers told us we could get the best smoked salmon:
It was delicious. And it was a really pretty restaurant. We got to sit outside on the porch overlooking the ocean front:

We were originally in Santa Cruz to see the Mystery Spot. A place where they say gravity just doesn't work the same way it does on the rest of the planet.

Apparently everyone wants to see this marvel, so we weren't able to do the tour because they were too busy. From what we hear, the cabin is built really crooked, which makes possible the use of many optical allusions. So that discredits the theory that there's a space ship buried in that spot (no really, that's one of their explanations).

All in all, it was a nice day in California and a beautiful drive home:
(Even though our battery died and we found out we need a new alternator. Better we found out now than half way to Utah!)

It was all so picturesque as we drove home listening to the Beach Boys:
Whose cd we got for only $1 at the yard sale that morning :)

Random Updates

2010-05-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Jon doesn't think I'm nearly as funny as he should. If Jon said half as humorous things to me as I say to him I would be laughing all day long. And yet time and time again I have to repeat my funny jokes cause Jon doesn't get it the first time.

I just. Don't. Get it.

Is it any wonder I get caught doing this:

Singing RockBand all by myself. Because they ALWAYS cheer for me. They like me! They really like me!

And yet when I come home and find Jon playing dead like this:

With a note on his chest that says this:

I laugh and laugh, take pictures, and post it on the blog. I'm not asking for that. Just a laugh. Without me having to ask. Or repeat what I said. Or explain why it was funny.

I don't think that's too much to ask.

Meanwhile, as I've sat here writing this Jon has cleaned up dinner (which was really just left over breakfast....because I didn't make dinner...) and done the dishes. And hung up a pile of my clothes.

That probably was too much to ask.

On a brighter note, I think it's time that Jon and I take an official stance on Lost, the show that has captivated the world for 6 years, and will be coming to an end this week.We owe ABC a thank you, really, for providing us with date nights the last six months, when we first started watching Lost:
Dates which usually had to take place in a lab on campus, as pictures above.

There's been a lot of criticism of where the show has taken us, and a lot of threats about how it better end amazing. But let's face it, they could show four re-runs of I Love Lucy for the show finale and Jon and I would still be huge fans.

And would consider buying these shirts:

Just like we've considered buying these shirts:

If Zack Morris shows up in the Season Finale of Lost we've committed to buy both shirts.

Also, we're down to four weeks left in California and then we'll move back to Cedar City, UT!!!

We're excited to be moving back home.

And sad to leave our first home together.

But more excited to be moving back home :)

Inmate Mormons, Toby Gerhart, and a Really Cool Cardigan

2010-05-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

We had a busy Saturday. We had to wake up extra early because Mormon's all over California were cleaning up the State parks. They called it "Mormon Helping Hands"

To help me cope, Jon sang me that song from An American Tail while we rode the elevator down:

You know the song, "But there are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese!" Jon's obsessed with it (and with that shirt--his mom gave us each one for Christmas.).

So the church generously gave us each a vest that said "Mormon Helping Hands" on it, to let people know who we were I suppose:
We personally thought it made people assume we were inmates, but the parks still get cleaned in the end, so what does it matter? Above we are with the Elders in our ward (Elder Frost from Murray, UT, and Elder Aimes from North Pole, Alaska--haha, he's from a place called North Pole) and with our friends the Bowens.

I'm just glad Jon and I got to work in the same group. Usually I'm assigned to something like raking or pulling weeds while Jon is asked to pull a stump out of the ground with his bare hands.

Below is a group playing volley ball across from where we were working:
Jon thought that was a funny picture because they obviously do not have helping hands. Neither does that yellow-vested inmate just sitting at the picnic table.

Anyway, we had a bbq afterwards and it was lossa fun.

When we got back home we went to a Pow Wow being held on campus:
Apparently it's the biggest Pow Wow in the nation:
....Or so the legend goes:
The pictures above are of the Native Americans dancing to music from the drumming competition. Tribes from all over the nation came to compete. From what I could tell, anyone who wanted to could go out and do a little free dancing.

Here's me and Jon in front of a Teepee:
There were tons of booths, and it was fun to walk around and shop while listening to the music and chants from the competition:
I did get two new necklaces. You know how I love to buy jewelry from these things. I justify it by saying it will help me remember my heritage with Great Great Grandma Running Deer (I'm being serious).

On our way home we passed the LaCrosse game (Stanford won). Toby Gerhart just happened to be there so Jon pretended to pose so I could get a picture of him:
He's over the shoulder of the man in turquoise. Maybe we'll have him sign this photo someday.

Our friend Lilliana got baptized yesterday, and it was wonderful to attend that:
She seemed really happy, as did her family. By the way, that cardigan I'm wearing was a shirt that I found abandoned in our laundry room. It didn't fit me so I cut it up the middle and wore it as a cardigan. I didn't hem it or anything. Jon thought it was hilarious. As for me, I thought I was the coolest kid on the block.

Our final event of the night was selling tickets at the Stanford Grad Formal. We were going to dress up, but we went out to dinner with Dave and Lilliana after the baptism, and it ran a little long. So I looked like a librarian at the dance:
Participating in Stanford events is always a pleasure though. We talked with one of Jon's classmates and met his date when they came in. After our shift was over and we got to join the dance, we passed his date on the stairs with a different guy making out and asking each other if they'd remember each other in the morning. Meanwhile he was drunk and dancing in the ballroom--I don't think he even realized she was missing.

Like I said, always a pleasure.

The highlight of the night was seeing our ward friends Drew and Ashton at the dance.
Yes, I am significantly shorter than everybody in this picture. Ashton played volleyball for BYU, and is as tall as Jon, and her husband ballroom danced at BYU and is about three inches taller than her. They're great, we love them. (Random fact: Kaylee is friends with Ashton's little sister--they met on Heritage Tours).

Thus our eventful weekend comes to a close with Mother's Day. We wish we could be in Utah to ~~help eat~~ give our mom’s chocolates. But this humble shout out from the blog will have to do (for now). Happy Mother's Day!

The Last Rodeo

2010-04-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Last Rodeo: this is the title of Brooks and Dunn's final tour before they break up. They happened to come to a neighboring town, and somebody was basically giving away their tickets on the lds list, so Jon and I snatched them right up.

At the concert:

The concert was in an amphitheater, and we had lawn seats. This is us outside the theater with all the vendors.

This is us with our friends, Dave and Lilliana Goodwin--and their grandma:

Funny story, Dave Goodwin was actually my sisters home teacher at snow college, and we didn't know until my sister came out and visited us (Taren, I forgot to tell you). Small world. We play games with the Goodwins every week. We actually didn't know they were going to the concert, but then they called to see if we could babysit their daughter while they went. Instead, we offered to drive them to the concert.

Me and Jonny:
Cute Dave and Lilliana:
Dave's family is flying out from Utah in a couple weeks, cause Lilliana is getting baptized the day before Mother's Day, and then they'll bless their daughter on Mother's Day. They have an exciting month coming up! We like them a lot:

Me and Jon watching the concert (Jon's Hot):

I really was having fun...despite picture evidence that would suggest otherwise:

So Jason Aldean was the opening act--that was a nice surprise! We had no idea--but he was a lot of fun.
And finally, me and Jon waiting on the grass between the opening act and Brook's and Dunn:

It was a fun concert! Brooks and Dunn are a good time: their favorite thing was taking people's camera's from the audience and taking pictures of themselves and then giving it back. You'd think after 20 years of concerts they'd be able to use a digital camera--but everytime they still had to ask which button to push. It was funny. My favorite one was a camera they took and asked, "Is that a picture of Taylor Swift on your camera? She has camera's now!? Good grief, that girl. Brooks, do you think we could make somethin' like this?"

Overall, it was really nice to be around country folk again--made us excited to move back to Cedar City--where big trucks are the norm and compact cars don't get parking preferences.

Country--it does the soul good.

More Visitors! Warning: It's a long post with a lot of pictures

2010-04-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

This last week this cool couple came to visit us:

Oops, did I say couple? Josh and Amber, as relationship status: single, came to visit us.

For an annoyingly detailed picture-account of the trip, Josh has posted such a thing on Facebook. I'll just cover some of the highlights.

We took them to the San Francisco Exploratorium, which we had never been to, but had heard was worth going to. We were sold before we even went in, because outside is this beautiful scenery:

Amber and Josh didn't invite me into this picture with them, but I awkwardly got in anyway:

So, the exploratorium is super cool, and I don't use the word "super" lightly. Everything is hands on, and everything has an explanation as to why it works, why it's relevant to us, and where you'll find it if it's a natural phenomenon--it's all just mind boggling.

Jon, Amber, and Josh had a little too much fun inside the mirrors of eternity without me:

But it's okay, because Jon and I made this ball float in air using only the power of love:

....and maybe had help from those air jets

Downside of the exploratorium? Always having to wait for those dorky kids to get outta our way:
This machine made sparks that you'd try to catch (but it was impossible to catch them):
Heat graphs of mine and Jon's bodies (dark=cooler) I love how it doesn't even look like Jon:
A grand piano hanging from the ceiling using a pulley system, while Jon reaches in a jealous angst:
In the perceptions room they challenge you to drink out of this clean toilet--claiming that our perceptions of toilets make us nervous to do so:
But Jon ain't nobodies fool--he drinks that water!

The chair I'm not sitting on is a normal sized dinner chair:

This was the engine of a car. They would give you a common problem with a car, and the wand would give you instructions on how to find where the problem was on the engine:

More pretty pictures of the outside of the exploratorium:

The SUU San Francisco Alumni chapter hanging out at Steve's hotel:

And no trip would be complete without some time in the city. Here's Alcatraz:

While in the city, we found a small, pretty park. So Josh insisted on taking some cheesy engagement pictures for Jon and me:

But as he always does, Josh made his move while my back was turned:

And yet Jon seems blissfully content with it...(Josh is holding sour dough bread he bought on the wharf....it basically became his child).

While in the park this mermaid emerged and petitioned to be part of our world:
I'm just glad his mother wasn't there to see her son grow up to be a mermaid. (MerMAN, Father! *black lung cough* *black lung cough* Mer-MAN!--Zoolander)

To be perfectly honest, whenever Jon see's a rock next to running water he always wants to do this pose. He has an affinity for such picturesque moments.

We ended the night going to a Giants game. They have a pretty stadium, as if overlooks the bay:

Thanks for coming at visiting us, Amber and Josh!
We've.....had....the time of our lives.....and we've never felt this way before.

So It Wasn't A Brain Tumor--Lay Off Me!

2010-03-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Well, if you trust modern medicine that is (or the "eye doctor" in costco...whatever).

So no, I don't have a brain tumor. But I do have reading glasses!

The only reason I really posted this picture is cause I wanted my cute nephew Braden to see that I have glasses now--just like him!

...But I did try to make the picture look as awkward as possible for the rest of your enjoyment.

Anyway, onto better news:

This cute family came to visit us this week!
My sister Jenna, her husband Austin, and their three precious ones. We had lots of fun with them here! For one--we finally got to go to the beach (as pictures above).

We also took them to Ghirardelli square to enjoy an ice-cream sundae.

Here's little JJ doing his own thing:
And the rest of the happy family (Happy is so relative, isn't it Brielle?)
We took a drive down Highway 1 (apparently rated the prettiest drive in america), and got to see "the most photographed lighthouse in the nation".
The funnest part of the drive was stopping at the beach at Half Moon Bay. There's something for everybody, including a toddler who just eats sand all day:
The waves were really big. We'd be standing there thinking the wave would get our feet wet as it washed onto shore, only to find that it went up to our waist. That ocean sure is tricky.

Brielle didn't take a liking to the water, but she sure enjoyed yelling at everybody else to warn them of incoming waves.
I like to call this next picture: The Loneliness of LeadershipJon asked me to take this picture:
I'm still not sure why, but I have a hunch that it has something to do with a poem about foot prints in the sand.

The happy couple:
The men:

Other fun activities with the Duke family included:

-Going to the Jelly Belly Factory

-Eating at a San Fran burrito restaurant that Bobby Flay had a throwdown with.

-Jon and I watching three tired and grumpy kids while Jenna and Austin had a night in the city.

-Our failed attempt at finding beached Elephant Seals (Sorry Jon)

Thanks for coming and visiting us Duke family! We had lossa fun!
Oh, and before Lindsay and Allie left us last week we hiked The Dish as the sun was going down. It was really pretty seeing the view of the bay.

Not to mention Lindsay and I working on our aspiring ANTM careers

And I became Jon's breathing coach:

We've loved having visitors! Now it's back to the real life as I stop taking days off of work, and Jon starts his final quarter of school!

Microwaves, Rollerblades, and Friends

2010-03-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

So I never answered the question I posted a while ago about what happens when you fix a microwave with electrical tape. So far so good. But just as future advice: letting the cord of any appliance hang out your car while you're driving is ALWAYS a bad idea. And so is getting a microwave that doesn't fit in your kitchen,

but I think it looks kinda natural in our bedroom, don't you?

This way, if the electrical tape doesn't hold up and it does spontaneously combust in the middle of the night, we'll go with it. What is a life without a microwave anyway?

The weather has gotten really nice these past couple of weeks. One particularly nice day we went roller blading on campus:

I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing in the picture above--but I'm 80% sure I was pretending to be dead.

We give roller blading one thumbs up
It'll earn the second thumb when I learn how to stop in them.

This week our friends Lindsay and Allie Pace came to visit us! We've had a lot of fun having them here, sleeping in our front room. We even bought Cinnamon Toast Crunch as a celebration of them coming. We're going to miss them when they leave us tomorrow.

While they've been here we all went to the beautiful Oakland Temple to do a session:
Attempting to do the splits isn't a common activity you'll see in the temple parking lot, but we were lucky enough to have caught Jon in the process of it:

What a pretty temple we have:

Lindsay Pace and me! How I love her. She was one of my bridesmaids for my wedding, and she's just great.

We tried to get a picture of us with the pretty view of the city (because the temple is up on a hill), but we didn't have much luck getting the view in there. But we're not a terrible sight to behold, so the picture wasn't a complete failure:

But look at that pretty view from the temple:

After the temple we visited San Francisco, and of course, any trip to the city isn't complete without a stop to the Ghirardelli factory for a sundae:

Allie really was with us this whole time, I don't know how she managed to escape all the pictures.

We've had a great time with our visitors, and are excited for our visitors yet to come--my sister and brother-in-law, and the one and only Joshua Snow Hansen, folks. Come prepared for really warm weather, and the possibility of rain. You just never know what you're going to get.

(By the way, this blog was dedicated to the one and only Marissa Mills--whose loving dedication of checking the blog for updates will not be in vain for at least this one day. )

So I Thought I Had A Brain Tumor

2010-02-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

No really, I did. Jon looked it up online and I had 1 out of the 10 symptoms they had listed (my symptom: frequent headaches).

Which was enough to make me think it was plausible.

But the more I researched it the more I thought that I just needed a nice pair of reading glasses.

And the more my mom researched it the more she thought I just needed to stop staring at a computer screen for so long.

But I have an eye appointment tomorrow at which point I'm confident all questions will be answered. The eye doctor, by way of a convenient truth, is usually the first person to diagnose a brain tumor. I promise it was only 1/4 of the reason I scheduled the appointment. I'll keep you posted.

In lighter news, Jon and I snagged tickets to Harvey Fierstein's final tour of Fiddler on the Roof showing in San Francisco--and also got Stanford to pay for most it by convincing them it was a cultural event that lots of students could go to!

So Jon organized the advertising of it, and was in charge of getting all the students their tickets and transportation. As an added benefit, Stanford also paid for the group to have dinner in the city. It was a fun night, and we met a lot of students.

Harvey Fierstein's performance was nothing to rave about--he's definitely been smoking. But his raspy voice wasn't bad enough to ruin the show.

Now onto Valentine's Day:
Aww, what a cute centerpiece:
Aww! What a cute husband!
We had a lovely steak dinner, with a lovely salad, and lovely potatoes. Then we watched Jurassic Park 3--the perfect ingredient for any romantic occasion. And we ended the entire night by playing bridge with our neighbors (not because we're practicing to live in a rest home someday, but because we're hoping bridge makes a mighty comeback in American culture.)

These past few weeks have been quite warm, so we put off doing our homework to do a little hiking:
This is The Dish--Stanford's wildlife preserve area, minus the big satellite dish in the middle of it. The trail is pretty steep, but gives you a nice view of the bay once you reach the top.

Our proof that it was steep:

The pretty view:

Unfortunately, since it was so hot that day, many people joined us on the hike, and the Stanford police got all uppety about parking. Thus the lack of space to accommodate all who wanted to hike, mixed with the fact that it was a woman officer (we all know the type), resulted in basically everyone hiking getting a parking ticket.

Was it still worth it? Absolutely.

Riots, Gymnastics, and a Homeless Guy

2010-02-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

This last week the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) came to campus to protest the Jewish Community Center. They're crazy, that WBC. Even Michael Moore thinks so, and that's saying something! They're the infamous group that protested at Matthew Shephard's funeral (the Wyoming student who was drug out to the middle of nowhere and killed because he was gay), and also protest military funerals with signs that say "Thank Heaven for Dead Soldiers."

They're quite the delightful group. Thank goodness their church only has 80 people in it, and that most of them are family.

Fox has interviewed the church twice. Both interviews are hilarious. The second one is my favorite, but the first one is good to initiate you with how crazy that group really is. Enjoy both:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKcWQ1TUbU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc5FIMpHbgU&feature=related

Anyway, Stanford organized a counter-protest, so naturally Jon and I went. This is us in front of the Jewish Community Center:

Below is the group of students who made a long line with their backs facing the protesters:

Love signs make me happy:
And this was the gospel choir that everybody faced and sang with:
The whole Stanford group:
And then the WBC showed up:
They were a little late because they went to Gunn High School first (the high school has had an abnormal amount of suicides this year) to let them know that the suicides are a sign of God's hate for them. Like I said, delightful group.

It wasn't super exciting though, because the WBC was severely outnumbered by the Stanford group. So Jon and I left early. On our way back to the car, we saw this guy:

Our mascot! Just trompin' down the street. I guess he was late for the protest.

Also this last week, SUU gymnastics came to compete in San Jose! Of course we went to watch:

Of course SUU creamed them. They're now 6-0! Go flippin' birds!

Here we are enjoying ourselves at the meet:
And here we are with Steve Kiisel who accompanied us on the journey:
Steve was SUU Student Body President two years before Jon, and lives in San Jose working at a really nice Marriott. In fact, after the meet we all went to his hotel and hung out in the hot tub. So fun!

The funniest part of the night, however, was when a homeless man approached us for change. Jon reached in his pocket and pulled some out. The man reached out for the money, and Jon reached out to put it in the cup he was holding. As Jon let go of the change both of them stopped and stared as it all went sinking into the man's soft drink. The man mumbled a thank you and Jon just turned and kept walking without saying anything.

From that point on, our favorite saying of the night became, "Jon, do you remember when you put your money in that homeless guys drink?"

Lesson learned: Just because a homeless guy is holding a cup doesn't mean he wants you to put money in it.

Our New Humble Abode and a Weekend Date

2010-01-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

This week we left our old home.

And when I say our old home I mean Jan's home.

Goodbye living room that wasn't ours:
Goodbye kitchen, microwave, kitchenaide, and pink counter tops:

Welcome home Jan!

I put that sign up while Jon was at school, so it was sad when he walked in and thought it said, "Welcome Home, Jon."

We moved on campus onto the seventh floor of a couples apartment high rise. We have a very nice balcony and a lovely view of the mountains:

Here's Jon scheduling his home teaching:

Here's our new kitchen:

It's hard to tell in the picture, but that sink is about a foot wide, and a cookie sheet will only fit in the oven if you put it in sideways. It's lovely, really.

Our bathroom....it's very small so this is the most I could get in one picture:

Our living room:

Sleeping in the living room:We love being on campus. No more 45 min. bike rides for Jon! And we have internet! Life is just so great.

For our date this week Jon and I decided to go to some little hot spots we'd read about online. The Gamble Gardens are a couple blocks away from us and we heard that they were pretty cool.

Gamble...as in Proctor and Gamble.

I'm not kidding.

Here's Jon, quizzical about what the future will bring:

It took us all of five seconds to realize that visiting a famous garden in January was a major oversight on our part:

I'm sure that bush is just beautiful when it's alive.

But even without any blooming flora, the set up of the garden was really beautiful:

They had these pretty little fountains and benches throughout the garden:

And apparently there's some kind of Star Wars flower that grows:

Guess we'll have to go back and check that out.

Another nice fountain:

And a real live sun dial!

It was too cloudy to tell the time, but we know where we're going the next time the powers out. (P.S. this picture was our failed attempt of seeing what time it would be if our camera's flash were the sun)

On our way home from the Garden's we drove by the Google offices (because Jenna got mad at me for not seeing them yet). And just so you know, they don't refer to their building as an office, it's a campus.

The Google campus is really big. Unfortunately it was dark and we didn't want to stop in the rain, so all we got was a picture of the street sign:

Jelly Belly Lane, Google Street....that's the beauty of not living in the grid system--you can name a street whatever ya darn well please.

Tune in next post when I recount the tale of how we spent two hours buying a microwave and then broke it on the way home.

And while you're waiting ponder this: fixing a microwave with electric tape--Fire hazard or no?

A Trip to the Jelly Belly Factory!!!

2010-01-14T20:25:00.001-08:00

And where might you find the Jelly Belly Factory, you ask?:

Why on Jelly Belly Lane, of course! Which, believe it or not, was a legit street address on our GPS.

I don't know why, but just driving up to the factory filled us with all kinds of excitement:

Before we even entered the building we saw a poster for Jelly Belly University:

Jon read the poster for like ten minutes. I think the Degree in Beanology was a tempting alternative to his current career path.

And just in case the outside of the factory didn't make us happy enough, who do we see when we first enter the doors?:

Santa! (Did I mention we took this trip back in December?)

On his lunch break!:

But clearly this isn't the real santa: he smells like cheap sausage and sits on a throne of lies.

They give free tours of the factory, thus Jon and I took one. The hats pictured below were provided for free also:

The tour guide came over her portable intercom to announce, "Rule #1: Your hats must be worn at all times." Not a problem, Chica.

"Rule #2: No pictures are allowed beyond this point." Now you're just being unreasonable.

The first twenty minutes of the tour was fun, the last twenty-five was a bit strung out. But, we got to eat Jelly Belly's in all stages of production: without a shell (because not only the shell is flavored, but the jelly part too! That's what makes it a gourmet bean), with a non-polished shell, with a polished shell, with no "Jelly Belly" branding, and the final product. They even gave us each a free bag of our very own jelly belly's.

My favorite part of the tour was when they explained why they had over a dozen jelly-belly murals of this man:

Turns out when he was California governor he used Jelly Belly's (then just a local novelty) to help him quit smoking. He'd pass around a big dish of them during every meeting. Then he won the presidential election and so Jelly Belly helped cater the inauguration party. Then Reagan had a constant supply of Jelly Belly's put on AirForce 1, and after that, well, the rest is history.

Everyone told us to buy the factory reject beans while we were there because they're cheaper.

False!

They're MORE expensive. Because they gave them the cute name of "Belly Flops," put them in cute packages, and then insist on getting to name your firstborn if you buy a package--because you can only buy them in the factory, ya know.

So we bought the regular kind, and while we were checking out the worker told us the owner was a mere five feet away from us.

So naturally we followed the owner to his lunch table and took a discreet picture of him:

He's the one facing the camera. We're glad we got to meet/follow him. He's a real down to earth guy.

For lunch we had a Jelly Belly shaped pizza:

And a Jelly Belly shaped Hamburger:

And I also had a jelly belly shaped hot dog, but I ate it too fast, so instead enjoy this reverse angle of the Jelly belly shaped pizza:

At last, we bid farewell to the Jelly Belly Factory, while the giant Jelly Belly Santa watched us drive off (what a creep):

One Jelly Belly Lane--the address will forever be etched upon our hearts.

And for what it's worth, Jelly Belly Factory, we think you're the Best Company Tour in America 2009!

Christmas Break Picture Post

2010-01-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

It kinda bugs me when people apologize for not posting on their blog. Like their posts are heaven's gift to the earth? Although it's noble that they're taking responsibility for depriving the human race, I think they should get over themselves.

Okay, I don't always feel that way. When Kimberly and Jenna don't post frequent pictures of my nieces and nephews, I feel as if they owe me an apology.

What I'm really trying to say is that I will not apologize for not posting. It makes me feel conceited......

......So anyway, here's some of the great things we did over Christmas break:

Had our first Christmas tree:
My favorite part of the tree is the popcorn chains. Mostly because Jon insisted on having them, and no more than ten minutes after his insistance, I heard him crying out in the kitchen. I went in to see the air popper blowing popcorn straight into the air as Jon tried to catch the kernels with a bowl. while simultaneously trying to shut off the air popper.
Popcorn chains will forever be a tradition.

I hate this picture, but laying in bed and watching two seasons of Lost comprised 75% of our break.

Jon decorated his mom's basement for my birthday (and gave me breakfast in bed--pictured above):

And took me out to dinner at Mimi's Cafe, where Lindsay Pace joined us!:

I love the following picture because Lindsay's freaking out and Jon looks like he's posing for the VHS movie case of Buttercream Gang:

Awww:

Also for my birthday, Jon's mom made me a delicious cake with her famous frosting I've heard so much about (and it is delicious):

We spent Christmas morning with my family. And my niece being so upset about wearing that coat was probably one of my highlights:

It's a tradition for my family to launch rockets on Christmas morning, so here's the men putting the rockets together:

I know it's torture when someone's trying to take a picture of you and the sun's glaring into your eyes, but I'll never stop thinking pictures like this are funny:

Jon and my Dad building rockets:

We were particularly proud of that Star Trek rocket.

More pictures of my angry niece in her coat (HAHAHA!):

My motto: There's nothing funnier than an unhappy kid when you're not their parent.

Launching rockets:

Fixing rockets:

Sledding with my family:

Oh, and I successfully managed to break the snowglobe that Jon gave me for Christmas:

We should be getting a replacement any day now (manufacturer's defect. I swear it.)

Well, thank you to all our families who housed us while we visited Utah! And thank you for all the food, games, presents, activities, and good times in general! And for letting us create awkward moments while you try to impress your new girlfriend (that's a shout out to you, Dave!....oh, and you left your diet pomegranate 7-up at the house. You're good to go pick that up any time you want)!

We had so much fun visiting Utah!

***Note: We will not be posting a list of our new years resolutions. Count us off of that bandwagon right now.***

Jon's Birthday

2009-12-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

December 6, 1984 a miracle came into the world.....

Anyway, so it was Jon's birthday on Sunday. I was nervous about it all week. Whenever Jon was out of the house I would try to get something ready for his birthday dinner, or wrap his presents...anything I could do to make it not be a disaster on Sunday.

I woke up early sunday morning to decorate the kitchen and make his birthday breakfast:

Yes, those are plastic wine glasses.

After two hours of getting it all ready, Jon woke up and joined me :)

And he had one present by his plate that he got to open right away: chocolates.

Jon informed me later in the day that when he woke up that morning he had remembered that it was fast sunday (which I obviously had not) but knowing that I just spent all that time on his birthday breakfast, he decided another sunday would be better.

The birthday boy all ready for church:

For dinner we had Cafe Rio salads with cowboy salsa, two of Jon's favorite foods:

Yeah, i even bought those tins to make it look legit.

And little tupperwares to look like the little dressing cups they give you.

And I don't know why Jon was wearing that pink apron....

His best present of the day: Rock Band Country Track.

For dessert Jon invited four of our friends from the ward to come have cake and ice-cream with us. Well...it was actually cake with ice-cream...cause he wanted an ice-cream cake. So he got a brownie-mint icecream cake.

Sara took the pictures of Jon and his cake, and she conveniently didn't get pictures of anyone else there.....

....or did we actually celebrate alone and really take these pictures with a timer so we wouldn't look like such losers?

I guess you'll never know.

Happy Birthday my Sweet Jonny!!!

I'm sorry this picture is sideways of you!!! (By the way, that Jon's wiping the disbelief out of his eyes that he has so many candles on his cake)

And I'm sorry that your birthday wish won't come true.....

...because we all saw that you failed to blow out your candles in their entirety.

Better luck next year.

(There! can you see that hand by Jon?! Other people were with us! We do have friends!)

Oh, and Jon was sick this past week, so he had me take a picture of his throat to see if we could see what was wrong:

The diagnosis was inconclusive.

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

Top 3 Funny Questions About Mormons:
A tiny excerpt of having Thanksgiving with non-momons:

#1:
Nancy: What are the kids like that you nanny for, Liz?
Me: Oh, just normal three year old twins. They're cute though, they're half Chinese.
Nancy: Are they adopted?
Me: No, the lady I work for is married to a man of Chinese descent.
Nancy: But she's mormon too isn't she. Is that allowed?

Disclaimer: Mormon's are not all middle-class white citizens. Let's clear that up right now.

#2:
Nancy: So what made you and Jon break up a couple months before your wedding?
Me: Well, we had been dating for two years and we weren't engaged or anything, so it was either time to break up or get married. So we broke up first...and then got married.
Nancy: I don't blame you. Two years is a long time to not be able to hug or touch or anything.
Me: .....yep.

I think she's confused with another religion, or country....or time period.

#3:
Jon: I brought a game called Pass the Pigs if anyone wants to play.
Robert to me: Is that a mormon game?
Me: Yep. Every mormon is handed their very own game set of Pass the Pigs when they walk out of the baptismal font.
Robert: Really?
Me: Yeah, it's pretty much the climax of our conversion process.
Robert: Look Liz, we jews are willing to claim the dreidel as our own, so if Pass the Pigs is the mormon dreidel, own up to it! You don't have to be so sarcastic!

Pictures:

Thanksgiving was fun! Jon still spent a lot of time doing homework, so I consequently spent a lot of time in the computer lab with him. Pres. Benson of SUU came out for the Stanford vs. Notre Dame football game and took us out to dinner--TONS OF FUN!!!

Here's our Thanksgiving Break in Picture form:

These first three are the discovery of the triple-picture timer on the camera:

Take one: Taking jon by surprise:
Take 2: Reminding Jon it's supposed to take two more:
Take 3: Finally getting it right.
Watching Lost in between homework sessions:
More Lost (yeah,we got through the first two seasons in one week):
We had Thanksgiving dinner with other students in Jon's cohort who stayed behind. Robert is our friend from Canada. He's never had thanksgiving before so we honored him by giving him the leg of the turkey (previous to this i've only seen people take a whole turkey leg on t.v.):
Me and Jon:
Half of the group we ate dinner with: Me, Jon, Robert, Ray, Chris, and Nancy:
Stanford vs. Notre Dame game!
Stanford's crazy band (They've had to issue public apologies before, and are actually banned from Notre Dame's campus because they offended them so badly one year. But when their instrument is the only thing making noise from their mouth they're actually really fun to watch):
And yes, the dancing tree seen above is our mascot.
Rushing the field after we won!:
Me and Jon leaving the stadium while all the rested and youthful rush the field:
Thanksgiving break was so good! Only two and a half more weeks until we come home to Utah!

Homecoming and Halloween!!!

2009-11-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

Finally, we have pictures of our trip to Utah for SUU's homecoming!!! We had so much fun visiting good ole' Cedar City, and SUU even won the football game! That's like the first time in seven years or something.
Below is a group of us enjoying the game:
And here's a picture of Greg Hyde leading us all in a cheer (while the cheerleaders watched helplessly on):

Amber appointed herself to be our personal escort, and apparently had some time alone with the camera:

I enjoyed having Amber with me though because Jon was lame most of Friday night and did homework while the rest of us went to Craig Karges, the mentalist that has been confusing students of SUU for 20 years now. He's amazing.

But Jon did join us for the most important part of the night:

TRUE T-BIRD NIGHT!!!

The night when we all gather at midnight at Old Sorrel and kiss,

whether we know each other or not.

I know, I know, this picture is awkward because I'm watching some couple behind us make out. But you know me, if I see anything that resembles a trainwreck I can't help but stare.

This picture is a little better:

Watching our friends become true t-birds was awkward. So much so that we took pictures of it to post on our blog:

Carl and Carly (Atta boy Carl!)

And in true t-bird fashion:

Tony and we-have-no-idea-who. Way to go Tony!

We also enjoyed a breakfast at Sullivan's Cafe the morning of the game. Mark was there too--but had to leave to finish the institute float for the Homecoming parade.

And now for Halloween:

Jon and I thought we had big plans for Halloween Day, so we decided to do our annual Halloween dinner the night before (okay, so it's not technically our annual Halloween dinner since it's our first halloween dinner, but we were just that confident that it would become a tradition).

I've heard of so many people making dinners in pumpkins that we decided to pick a recipe and try one.

It wasn't as great as I hoped. The caserole turned out to be very similar to that Chinese noodle casserole that Mom used to make--which is good, but never was my favorite. You also can eat the pumpkin--which tastes a lot like spaghetti squash. We're still eating the left overs from both the casserole and the pumpkin. I think next year we're going to do baked macaroni and cheese inside a pumpkin.

For dessert we had dirt cups (ya know, ice-cream with oreo crumbs on top, and gummi worms), and then I told Jon to pick out a Halloween movie. He came back with the four hour movie of Gettysburg. Wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's all good!

All in all, the night was a success and we thoroughly enjoyed our Annual Halloween Dinner.

The actual day of Halloween wasn't so great. We spent all day at the mechanic, who told us we needed $3,000 worth of work done on the car. So we got the brakes fixed for about $900 since that's what we originally went in for, and one of the mechanics slipped Jon his phone number and told him he'd do the rest in his home shop for $1,000. Jon was having an ethical dilemma about whether we should call him since he probably isn't supposed to lobby for personal customers while on the job at Midas. We told our friend at church about it and he said, "If that's your only ethical dilemma I would do it. If you're ethical dilemma was whether to try and talk him down to $800, well, that would be a different story." Haha!

For now our car is fixed, and for that we are grateful!

Welp, I think that's all for now!

Updates....but no pictures

2009-10-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago it rained really hard in Cali (people go crazy when it rains out here. The roads are a mess! It's worse than a snow storm in Utah--come on people. It's just rain). Anyway, the rain made our internet go out, and the lady we're renting from says she's "not in the financial position to fix it." Well, Jon and I are saving up for a trip to DisneyLand, so we're not in a financial position to fix it either. So now I only get to access the internet late at night when I'm sitting on campus waiting for Jon to finish his ridiculous homework assignments.

It's no fun.

No fun at all.

Okay, there is one picture. Due to my late night internet sessions, I have discovered that this is the fourth picture that comes up on Google Image if you google "Jon and Liz McNaughtan."

The guy sitting next to me in the computer lab says it's symbolic.

I told him to shove it.

So let's see, what has happened in the last few weeks?

1. I did get a job. I work for a family in Palo Alto. It's been an interesting situation. The rich are hard to work for. Especially when they're OCD. I really do love the lady I work for, but it doesn't change the fact that she scares me. For example, one day as I approached her to ask her a question, she stopped what she was doing and told me to only approach her on her right side. I have no idea.....

But i do enjoy the life lessons she gives me along the way. Seriously, she gives me all the advice on how to grocery shop under three hours (I'm not very good at it yet). And she's always giving me stuff she thought jon and I might need in our tiny little home. She's very thoughtful.

2. Jon has acquired a habit of coming home and staring at the wall for fifteen minutes before being ready to have normal human interactions. His brain hurts--that's what he says. I'm glad I don't go to Stanford.

3. We took a trip to UTAH!!! (Pictures and details will follow shortly)

4. While in Utah we brought back the dust buster we got for our wedding, because the lady we're renting from left us with a broken vacuum.

So I vacuumed our whole house with a dust buster.

And had to recharge it three times in the process.

And it was worth it.

Did Somebody Say.....

2009-10-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

WEDDING PICTURES!?!?!?!

After waiting for the post office to take two weeks to casually mention that they had a package they'd been holding onto for us, we finally got our wedding pictures!!! And I've spent a couple days editing them and organizing them, and so without further delay, here are a few (out of 667) of our wedding pictures.

(Sorry, I didn't include any family ones or anything, except the one of Me and Abbie pictured above because there were just so many. But there's a more complete album on Facebook!)

Here's a couple to start with:

I like the vogue-esque theme in this one:

I'm really not a fan of the kissing under the veil pictures,

but if you crop it just so it's actually not so bad:

Ah! I can't get over how cute this one is!

What can I say? I just bring out the best in him:

I'm particularly proud of the following editing jobs:

Hope you enjoyed them!

New Job, New School, New Schedules

2009-09-28T14:56:00.001-07:00

Jon started school last week, and it wasn't so bad--for me at least.

But I think Jon likes it too.

He reads a lot now. So I read a lot now too. While he's reading history and statistics,I'm spending time getting better at piano, cooking, juggling, exercising...

...and laundry. It's never been my strong point.

Anyway, Jon got a paid internship (yay!) working with the residential life office, plus he's on the graduate student government, and he's taking the limit of 18 credits. Life is just exciting!

I got a job offer. Two actually. One of the jobs was to work for a lady as her personal sort of asssistant. The other was temp work. The only problem was I had to drive down to San Francisco to accept the second job offer and get me on the pay roll. After half an hour of driving around in the city completely lost and scared I decided to just take the first offer and go home.

Laugh at me if you want to because I can't drive, but I'd like to see you drive in crowded streets like these:

Only that picture wasn't in San Francisco. How can I tell? Because it has more than one lane and doesn't have a trolley coming down the middle trying to force itself through the pedestrians.

And because Google said it was in Boston.

So anyway, I'm going to be the personal assistant for a lady who owns two businesses and has four kids. I haven't decided whether she scares me or not yet, but I'm leaning more towards the option of "yes, she is scary". Needless to say that even though I start on Wednesday, I'm still applying for other jobs.

Other than that nothing new has really happened with Jon and me.

But have I mentioned that the ice-cream man comes by four or five time a day?

Am I the only one freaked out by this? Are we not all in agreeance that ice-cream trucks are prime breeding ground for kidnappers?

These are actual pictures i took, by the way. I wanted evidence in case those two girls went missing.

And since the state of California has apparently forgotten the lesson we learned from the beloved four hour movie Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, I've provided the picture of the candy man/kid catcher from said movie:

You never approach someone selling ice-cream and candy! The truck always turns out to be a cage! Then we have to spend the rest of the movie trying to find all the children!

Some say that California has the highest kidnapping stats because it has the biggest population. I say it's because they let trucks like that roam around the neighborhoods at all hours of the day, AS MANY TIMES AS THEY WANT!!!

You have nobody to blame but yourself, California.

We Left Our Hearts in San Francisco

2009-09-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

This last week Jon and I woke up and decided to go on an adventure. So we caught the 1:00 train up to San Francisco. Neither of us were very confident in our skills to successfully use public trans, but we decided to go with it anyway.

Here's a picture of us on the CalTrain. If you notice, I look a little more confident that we're actually heading in the right direction than Jon does. This is because I was confident Jon knew what he was doing, but Jon....not so much.

After the CalTrain took us as far as it could, we hopped on a light rail to take us the rest of the way to San Francisco. By this time we were both completely lost. Below is a picture of us sitting on the light rail, completely freaked out because we have no idea what stop is ours.

Thankfully we did get off at the right stop (after a lot of looking at maps and asking people sitting around us where we were).

From that stop we took a trolley car down to fisherman's wharf--the heart of San Francisco! If you would kindly note the necklace I'm wearing in the picture below. It's a necklace Jon had made for me with stones from his grandmothers rings. You can't really see the details, but it has two stones on it: a diamond and a blue topaz (which just so happens to be our birthstone). He surprised me with it when we got back from our honeymoon. (Ooh!! That's so cute!!!). I know, right. Just further proof I married a champion :)

A very nice couple took the picture of us below (because they wanted us to take one of them in return). The island you can see behind us in the middle of the water is Alcatraz. Freaky! We didn't get to go out and take a tour of it, which is really too bad because that was one of my favorite things the last time I came to San Fran. We just didn't have time though. So this lone picture will have to do for now :)

We don't really have a reason for taking the picture below--but how could anybody just walk past that sign and not take a picture? Answer me that!

And of course, what kind of person would I be if I didn't introduce Jon to the classic tradition of eating clam chowder in a bread bowl while touring the wharf?

I submit that I would not be a very good person at all.

Oh! And look who joined us as we ate our chowder! A bird whose lost all but one toe!!!

Aww Little Stubby, life's not so bad! One toe is more than you need, really! And if nothing else, you have the fry to eat!

We also got to see a break dancing show on the street. Well, I got to see the show. Jon, on the other hand, got to participate in the show. They asked for the two tallest men in the audience, so naturally Jon got called up.

They made Jon and the other guy hold hands as pictured below. That kind of thing flies in San Francisco :)

Anyway, they had them there so one of the street performers could do a backflip over their arms. This next picture is of the guy just as he's about to flip over their arms. He got pretty high, but Jon said he didn't clear their arms. But everyone on the street was fooled into believing he did!

Next on our San Francisco tour was Ghirardelli Square! It was only a couple blocks from the wharf so we walked to it. While there we got a classic Ghirardelli ice-cream sunday. Jon said he felt bad buying an ice-cream sunday while there were so many people asking for money on the streets.

.....I didn't feel bad at all.

And that's why Jon will get to cut ahead in the line to heaven and I will not.

We took a train back uptown and had a little time to burn before our event of the evening, so we looked around for things to do. We found this little park, but too bad. "No Adults allowed unless accompanied by children." They saw us coming a mile away.

And finally for our activity of the night.....

WICKED!!!!! After a year of listening to and adoring the music from the Broadway, Jon and I finally got to see it on stage. It was really good! We really enjoyed it--Defying Gravity is amazing when performed by Broadway! (Just in case those of you who saw it performed at Pres. Benson's inauguration thought that was Defying Gravity at it's peak, you were sorely mistaken)

Tip for those who are interested in purchasing tickets--get them at the door! Online balcony tickets were $90-$120 each. At the door they were $40 each. We saved a lot by waiting to buy! There were still empty seats during the show too, so I don't think it sells out anymore. Just a word to the wise.

We took the last CalTrain out of San Francisco at midnight. We bought some treats for the ride. On the train Jon shared the doughnuts we had bought with a guy sitting next to us. In return he gave us two beers (haha! I just almost wrote two bears! But he didn't give us two bears--that would have been ridiculous and impractical). It was funny because we told him he didn't have to, but he finally gave them to us as he walked off the train so we wouldn't have time to refuse them again.

Bless his heart.

We did get pictures of me with the beer giving a thumbs up (I meant to do a thumbs down, but I got confused last minute), but Jon said it would be the appearance of evil or something so it's deleted now. Probably for the best. If I'm ever a Young Women's leader or something we wouldn't want those pictures to be used against me and my professed beliefs :)

As a more righteous substitute we give you this picture of Jon with his can of Kerns juice! 100% natural, no artificial flavors! The sober life is good!

So that was our San Francisco adventure! Hopefully we'll go back while we're still out here to see the sights we missed: Chinatown, the tour of alcatraz, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. But for now we're pretty happy with the experience we had :)

Oh yeah, and I guess we left our hearts in San Francisco.....

We Came, We Saw, We Conquered....And We Moved

2009-09-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

Still no wedding pictures posted.

Sorry.

But not sorry enough to change it. Anyway.....

This week is brought to you by the great latin quote "Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus", or in other words, "We Came, we saw, we conquered" (Can somebody please inform Miss Shelley that my junior year of Latin was not a waste.)

Goodbye Utah. We have conquered you. You have nothing left to offer us.

Okay, that was a lie. Utah still has a lot to offer us. Like our families, our friends, our familiar roots, our memories, our futures (hopefully). And where else could you find this:

Jon's close encounter pictured above could only have happened at the Hogle Zoo, which just so happens to be in Utah, and just so happened to be one of the stops we made on our honeymoon.
Not only that, but we upgraded our zoo tickets to the adventure plus pack--which gave us a ride on the carousel pictured below:

Was it an adventure...plus? I dare say it was.

A mere three days after our wedding Jon and I packed up his car and moved. And when I say packed, I mean PACKED!!! Here's a picture of Jon and me just before we began our drive.

Note that I was serious when I said I had no foot room. And also notice the green case that sat between me and Jon the entire way. Here's another picture that shows how well the back was packed:

Yes, we love moving. It's nice to see the scenes in other states. We took the picture below somewhere in Nevada. We got pulled over in Nevada by the way. We were going 78 in a 75 zone on cruise control. The cop passed us first, then slowed down, allowed Jon to pass him, and then pulled Jon over. He had all sorts of attitude about how we dared to pass a cop. Power trip? I think so. The pretty sunset made up for it though.

Yesterday was our two week anniversary. To celebrate Jon made the delicious salads pictured below. It looked more beautiful before we ate half of it. This is just one of the masterful cullinary creations that have come our of our kitchen after only a week of being here. The cute dishes on which the salad rests were generously given to us by Jon's mother. We love her :)

So here we are in California. People honk a lot in California. Almost as much as people smile in Zimbabwe (does anyone else remember that Crest commercial? Jenna?). But people are very nice in California too. And for stake conference this weekend Elder Andersen came! We tried to get a picture with him, but you know how that goes....(we really didn't, though)

Jon is an official Stanford student now. And I am an official Stanford courtesy-spouse-card-holder. Jon's schedule gets busy this week, which means goodbye to spending all day with ticket to ride, phase 10, clue, sequence, and other important activities that build character. I suppose I'll have to get a job or something.....

.....or have kids. Bleh. (Just kidding, Mom. I know having kids isn't gross. Kinda)

Some Things Are Worth Waiting For

2009-09-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Most readers anticipate the subject of a post by the title. If you're a reader who follows such a practice you're probably reading the title of "Some Things Are Worth Waiting For" and are anticipating a sappy post about how Jon is great blah blah blah, the two years of dating were worth it blah blah blah, marriage is great blah blah blah, and other such matters of love that often spill out of people's hearts after they get married (Did I mention we actually did get married? Oh, well we did. Pictures will come in a later post) Sorry if you're anticipating that post, because that is not what this is about. No, not at all.

As Jon and I filled our car this week to move out to California, we packed all our earthly possessions into a little Buick Century. Sacrifices were made, such as giving up leg room altogether and sitting indian...ahem...native american style for the 11 hour drive. No big deal. We made the sacrifice happily. There was one sacrifice, however, I didn't realize we had made.

As we drove to California Jon and I listed our goals for the following year. When we started setting goals in the "expand our talents" area, I naturally listed "learning to ride the unicycle" as our main priority. After all, we didn't want that $4 we spent at the yard sale to get the unicycle to go to waste.
Jon didn't share my enthusiasm about the goal. He just quietly looked back at the huge pile of possessions we had in the backseat. That's when it hit me.

We had not packed the unicycle.

Had I known, I would have held it on my lap!!--the last open space in the entire car if you don't count Jon's lap. But it was too late. The unicycle was left, no, abandoned in Heber.

So this post it attributed to our fond times on the unicycle, and how we anticipate being reunited with it in nine months.

Here Jon demonstrates the beginning step of learning the unicyle. The key is stabilization.

Jon helping me learn. He is the more advanced rider--mostly because he watched youtube videos for three hours to learn all the secrets. Note the jealous bystanders watching jealously on.

Picking up the unicycle....we spent most of our time repeating this step.

Spreading the joy. Kaylee is so worried about getting married we figured this is a sure-fire way for her to catch a few guys eyes.

All I can say about this photo is: Good thing Jon was there! That was a broken tail bone waiting to happen! It's a comfort to know that Jon's youtube resources report that they've never seen anyone eat it on a unicycle. If that's the case, maybe we can just look at this as the unicyle version of the trust fall.

I know what you're thinking--that those youtube sources are obviously wrong in that you can't crash on a unicycle. But you, dear reader, are the one who is wrong. Jon didn't eat it. Even though he's careening through the air in this picture he did in actuality land on his feet. Like a cat.

This is just how close unicycling brings me and Jon (Thank you Kaylee for being a creep and hiding behind the van to take this picture). So alas, when I say that "Some things are worth waiting for" I'm clearly speaking about our pursuit of riding the unicycle. We will not forget our goal! Youtube says it only takes three days to learn, which means Jon and I have negative 2 days to get it right. And until we return to Utah, Jon says our substitute talent goal will be learning to juggle. That will make us a double threat once we do learn the unicycle.

Oh no! I just had another realization! We're sharing the car in Cali, so now that we don't have the unicycle how is Jon going to make it to the bus stop every morning?

Engaged!

2009-08-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Jon and I are engaged (Just in case you can't tell what Jon is looking so happy about in the picture above). More importantly, Jon and I are are getting married in a mere 11 days. So here are a few of our engagement pictures to keep y'all entertained until the big day. Thank you Taren for your amazing work of a digital camera.

Blue eyes :)

We went to Grandpa's farm to get all the rustic settings; such as the old wooden well put in the yard for no apparent reason. It has now served its purpose.

Jon just looks really hot in this one. I'm marrying him :)

Grandpa's old truck. This is actually one of my favorite pictures.

Kimberly was mad we didn't use this for our invites. So here's an online tribute to make up for it.

Cheesy just works out sometimes, i learned. As illustrated below:

Yeah, Jon's holding me up with one arm. He's a regular Edward--except he's not a vampire with abusive tendancies.

Again, Jon is really hot in this one. I like how he's holding my hand in it. And how the ring looks like a diamond, not a yellow heart surrounded by little purple stones.

This is totally fake laughing. Nevertheless, it turned out quite well.

I don't know why, but it just works.

Stay tuned for more untimely posts