Merry Christmas to... Us?

Remember the neighbor's flowers that were delivered to us? Well, we have found ourselves in another sticky situation. Last Saturday Brian had to work and I didn't, so he left and I started doing something. After a couple minutes I heard him come in again, and he stuck his head in and said, "Someone left Christmas presents on the porch...for the Hurtado's. I brought them in." He left again and I went out to look at the presents. One was a popcorn tin, the kind with butter, cheese, and caramel. It had a note on it that said, "To Carlos and Vicenta. God Bless. Love Jane." Carlos and Vicenta were the owners before us. That wasn't too big of a deal because I know those popcorn tins are pretty inexpensive. It is the other present that I'm wondering about. It is a gift bag with about 15 of those big fat peppermint sticks, a Christmas book, and a little bag of jacks. The note on that bag said, "For the Saturday 7 pm coro (choir). Love, Jane." Now, I don't know when these were delivered, but this was Saturday already. We don't have any idea who Jane is. We don't have any forwarding address or telephone for the Hurtados. The only thing we have is a keychain from the mechanic where Carlos Hurtado said he was working. And I have doubts about whether he would still be working there anyway. We keep waiting for note or something that says, "We need our peppermint sticks back." If we don't hear anything soon, we'll be the proud owners of many peppermint sticks.

Christmas Stories

At the Christmas First Presidency Devotional, President Monson spoke on how he reads three things every Christmas: The Christmas story from the New Testament, A Christmas Carol by Dickens, and The Mansion by van Dyke. I remember President Monson talking about this at some devotional at BYU a few years ago also. Since I got my Kindle Fire (thanks Nu Skin) I found both The Mansion and A Christmas Carol available for free, and I decided I would read them since I never had before. They were both great Christmas reads, and it made me miss the big box of Christmas books we always had growing up. I've read a lot of those stories, but there is one that has been my favorite, "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. That's my one story that I have to read every Christmas. For everyone's reading pleasure I included a link here.

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

Ideas please!

For the first (and probably only) time in my life I was told I need to gain weight. I'm not wasting away, but Janet and I do weigh the same now. So, this is where I need some help. I want everyone's ideas on either your favorite high calorie meals, snacks and desserts, or any ideas on how to calorie pack. Comment away, please.

Fall time

For those that don’t know, we have two really big trees at our house. One in the front yard and one in the back. Because they are really big, they have a lot of leaves, little leaves, and it’s fall time now. Here’s what I got to do yesterday afternoon in the freezing cold:

That’s a lot of leaves. Now I want this (we saw an infomercial for it last night after I came in from raking and bagging the leaves):

Bad news, there are still leaves on the front yard tree (pictured above). Worse news, sometime we’ll have to do the same with the backyard tree—haven’t even touched it yet (can’t see any grass anymore).

We've been busy this month, mostly with work. Brian had his trip to Washington DC and has been busy with all the sport events going on at BYU. And it probably won't get much better now that basketball is starting. I worked over 70 hours this past week at the Nu Skin convention in Salt Lake City. I was in the Japanese check-in/orders section. The only Japanese I knew was what I learned from Big Bird Goes to Japan (one, two, three is ichi, ni, san), so it was a challenge to figure out what people needed. Luckily the guy next to me spoke Japanese so if I just couldn't tell what someone was saying, he could translate.

I also had my birthday. 

We decided to use the money I made from overtime this past week to recarpet the pink and purple rooms. We haven't gotten much farther than getting carpet samples and realizing that it is going to cost much more than we originally thought.

Any opinion on what color to get?

Washington D.C.

So, I got some work training this last week. It was in Washington D.C. and was Monday through Thursday. That meant that I had to leave early on Sunday and get back late on Friday. It was interesting to go on my first “real” business trip. I have been on other trips to Las Vegas, Salt Lake City [Provo to Salt Lake is a long trip :-) ], St. George, but not to a faraway place like D.C. I had never been to D.C., so it was fun to hit up the tourist attractions after work—turns out many of them close at 5pm, so I could only see the outside of some of them. The training was to learn how to run a satellite uplink. At work, we recently purchased a satellite uplink dish, and have been using it with a few hiccups. A co-worker and I went to this training so we would better understand satellites.

Enough about the work-related part of the trip, here are the pictures:

Here I am in front of the white house

 

Here’s the reflecting pool leading up to the Lincoln Memorial—bummer it was under construction.

 

The Lincoln memorial is huge!

 

There are a lot of names on that wall—it’s like 40 blocks of wall this size.

 

Yay, I got to see Tanner (and Rene and Margaret, and Joseph and Tracy and Afton).

 

Arlington National Cemetery—too bad it closes at 5pm in the fall. We got walk around the perimeter.

 

Cool effect in photoshop—HDR. It lets you combine pictures of the same thing with different exposures, so you get a cool looking picture. Too bad the flag moved in between pictures—although I still kind of like the result.

 

No tricky photoshop trick here—just a long exposure shot.

Computer Security

Not too long ago Brian installed a program on our computer that uses the webcam to do facial recognition to log you into your account. It is kind of slow sometimes and if the lighting is weird it won't recognize you. It's kind of cool though and it has provided plenty of entertainment since we realized it takes pictures of all the faces it recognizes. Now I know who has been trying to log into my account:

She finally gave up trying to look like me

The Great Wisconsin Get Together!!

Nice hat Brian! Too bad he forget to "forget" it at Mom and Dad's.

Nice glasses Dad. Brian is still impressed by the size of the bullets.

Canoeing!

Nice hat again

We finally went to Rib Mountain.  I'd have to say it is my favorite monadnock  in Wisconsin.  I look funny in this picture. Brian and I are the same height, but look at where my waist is compared to his.

Macy entertained us with all her favorite songs. I don't like this picture but it was the only one where Macey sat still enough to look at the camera.

Sadie sat still for the picture.

Hmm, there seems to be only pictures of Mom, Dad, me, Brian and the little girls. But we did have fun with Ben and Shannon and Ben and Joanna.

Mission Reunion

I haven't gone to any mission reunions since I got home because they were all for my first mission president, who was my mission president for one short transfer. Well, my native president was in town for his daughter's graduation from BYU, and they had a little get-together while they were up here. It was great to see Presidente Leyva and his wife.

Los Leyva y yo

I was also tickled to see this gal, whom I trained:

The power companionship with the Leyvas

We were companions for more than 5 months, and we had a lot of fun together.

I felt pretty old there, since about half of the elders had just gotten back in the past transfer or two, and I've been back two years.  I also felt the need to go back to Peru and visit. I better start saving up.

Broadcasting Building Dedication

So last Friday my work building (BYU Broadcasting—BYUB) was officially dedicated. The new IT building on campus was also dedicated at the same time in the same dedicatory prayer. It was a lot of work leading up to the dedication, as of course, being the broadcast facility, we were going to film it. Originally it was announced that President Monson was going to come and dedicate it, but I guess something changed last minute in his schedule and so he asked President Eyring to come and dedicate it. We had quite the crowd show up on Friday and everything had to be perfect. I’m not sure how many of the donors came, but there was a big luncheon held for them and some of the higher-ups at BYU and BYUB. The tables were decorated with a very cool flower centerpiece, and since flowers can’t really be re-used anywhere I got to take one of the arrangements home.

Anyways, back to the dedication. We had three apostles and President Eyring come—Elder Nelson, Elder Ballard, Elder Oaks. Elder Ballard spoke at the luncheon and President Eyring gave a brief talk before dedicating the building. He spoke about how both buildings were built to take advantage of the amazing technology that we enjoy today, and how it will reach out to members and friends around the world. A cool thing that he said was, “Never forget that while we have computers, cameras, microphones, fiber optic networks, clouds, and satellites, we will have failed if we do not rely upon the Holy Ghost to be the true ‘processor’ and ‘transmission line’ of our efforts to educate God’s children and to spread His message of peace, hope, and salvation…If our information technology and our broadcasting equipment does not improve the lives of others, serve to educate God's children in both temporal and spiritual knowledge, and help bring them home to Him, we have missed the mark.” It was also cool that he dedicated the building to be safe from some “untoward incident”. That has been a big concern with our building, that someone will come and open fire with a gun, as it has happened at some other TV stations around the country.

Also cool was when I was in the control room and turned around to see Elder Nelson standing at the doorway looking in. Then later on, President Eyring came into the room and was standing only a foot or two away from me, while hearing about what the control room does. I smiled at him and he smiled back.

Neighbor Flowers

So, in the last blog post, Sarah talked about the flowers that were delivered to our house because our neighbors were on vacation.

Well, the neighbors finally came home on Tuesday night—one full week after the flowers were delivered to us. We happened to walk outside around 9:30pm that evening and saw the dad and one of his sons out in the front yard, so we decided we better go deliver the flowers. Sarah volunteered to not go, so I went by myself. By the time I walked over, they were all inside the house, and I felt kind of bad knocking on the door at 9:30 at night. One of the boys answered and I stumbled through trying to explain why I had a vase of flowers in my hand. The mom came walking up shortly and began saying how she didn’t want the flowers. She didn’t want the flowers, and I could just take them, throw them away, or do whatever with them. I was left there kind of in unbelief—who doesn’t want a super nice vase of flowers? I asked if she was sure, and she went off again this time explaining how she didn’t want the flowers because of who they were from—she did grab the note though.

Bewildered, I walked back to our house with the flowers still in hand and put them back on the dinner table. Sarah was very glad she hadn’t gone with me to deliver the flowers. All that worrying about bringing them their flowers after they had all died! Too bad we didn’t know the end from the beginning! We didn’t even really get to enjoy the flowers either because they were for the neighbors.

Next time flowers get delivered here for a neighbor, we’re keeping ‘em! :-)

Random things

Brian turned 26 this past week! We celebrated his birthday by not waking up early to go exercise, eating his favorite meal, and cake and presents. I wanted to write his name on the cake, but we didn't have any powdered sugar, and the frosting I bought was funfetti, so it had little chunks in it. I improvised with regular table sugar, and the writing turned out...okay.

Brian was also very happy to increase his stores of tools, tape, and ties.

On Tuesday, we were happy to have Emily, Preston, and Lauren come visit. Lauren enjoyed going down the slide in our backyard, and we enjoyed seeing everyone. Lauren took a nap at our house while Brian and I were at work, and while Emily was here, she signed (or received at least) for some flowers for our neighbors. It was a very nice arrangement, but since that day the neighbors have been on vacation and the flowers don't look so nice anymore. I am debating putting the vase on their porch and taking away the note the flower company left saying the flowers were at our house. 

Before

After (even though I watered them!)

We finally got the pink and purple rooms and bathroom painted. The walls look a ton better, but the pink and purple carpets look even worse now that the walls are normal colored.

And to end, here are some pictures of the "Quality Choice" toothbrushes we bought yesterday. Apparently they are so high quality that they couldn't afford to pay someone to proof read the packaging. We now have "muliti-action" toothbrushes!

Lessons from Peru

It's been almost two years since I got back from a great year and a half in Peru. I've noticed on Facebook that quite a few of my friends (both from mission and high school) have recently taken trips to that beloved country. Looking at their pictures and talking to people from South America at work have brought back some dear and funny memories.

I was sick with stomach/intestinal sickness far more than any missionary should be. In my first area when I had the first major parasite attack, I was told to drink an electrolite drink. There were two choices: Gatorade, which cost three soles, and Spor-ade, which cost one sol. My frugal self was wanting to buy the cheaper Peruvian alternative, but no matter what I did to try and persuade myself, I could not bring myself to drink a liquid called Spor-ade, especially during times when my insides were already in disarray. I'm sure some one thought it was a great name since it was the Peruvianized form of "sport," and English is cool. Despite the cool word, there was no way I could drink a yellow liquid named after spores.

In my favorite area, we had an investigator that we loved. We always taught her outside where she was watching her sheep graze. We liked teaching her and we became friends with the sheep (as much as possible.) One day we stopped by, and she sadly told us that one of the sheep had died. There was nothing visibly wrong with the animal, so they blamed it on some soul-sucking-spirit type thing that killed sheep inexplicably. Then she said they were butchering the sheep right then. She disappeared inside and came back out with a (still warm!) hunk of meat and said, "We have a lot right now, so I thought you would like some of the meat." We graciously accepted it, and walked away, knowing there was no way we would be able to eat that poor sheep, still warm in my hands. We took it to our pensionista, who had a hard time understanding why we didn't want it. She cooked it up, ate it, and said it was good.

In that same area, we always went to Relief Society. This was a change from other areas because usually we had multiple branches/wards and couldn't go to all the meetings for all units.  But here we always went to Relief Society. The first Sunday in this ward, they had a woman come up. She told everyone to stand and raise their right hand to the square. I was wondering what in the world they were doing, and I just stood there, my eyes fixed on everyone else. Suddenly everyone started saying, "La caridad nunca deja de ser," which is "Charity Never Faileth." They all repeated it three times with their hands to the square, and sat back down.

In an area in Lima, one evening we saw a guy dressed up in a mariachi costume singing in the street. We walked by, and he started shouting English words at me. He then gave me his business card and told me he sang religious songs too. I gave him an invitation to church while my companion laughed behind him, and he dedicated a song to me as we escaped. We saw him later, sans costume, and he told us he would go to church if the bishop gave him time to sing to everyone. We told him sorry, yet he showed up at church! He didn't sing, but he left disappointed. A few weeks later, we saw him again all decked out, and he told us he would walk with us. We tried to say no, but he insisted. I don't remember where we were going, but that was a long walk. The whole time he sang and played his mariachi guitar. He might have been drunk. I can just imagine what someone watching us thought.

July 4th Recap

We had a great time enjoying the long holiday weekend and celebrating our country. We had fun at Stadium of Fire, courtesy of Brian's parents. Neither of us are Brad Paisley fans, but the fireworks after were definitely worth sitting through the concert. I especially enjoyed watching the skydivers parachute into the stadium. I wish I could skydive like that...(please Brian?).

We got up at 5:45 to watch the hot air balloons. but since it was threatening rain, the balloons didn't go up. Instead we watched them inflate and sit on the ground. One balloon was tethered and carried a flag up about 150 feet. It was a little bit of a disappointment but at least we got to the parade early.

Waiting for the parade to start. I'm going to make a collection of pictures of our feet.

We also went to some family get-togethers. At Brian's Grandma and Grandpa's barbecue, we participated in the paper airplane flying contest. We both won awards--Brian won in the distance category and I won the miniature category.

Maybe we will take our awards to work tomorrow to put at our desks.

Catching Up

I haven't been very good about blogging lately. Here's what's been going on in our lives.

It finally got hot here, like in the 90's hot. It hasn't been too bad except for the fact that there is still a lot of snow in the mountains, creating some flooding problems. Luckily, we're far enough away from Utah Lake to be safe. We enjoyed spending an evening up in Provo Canyon at Bridal Veil Falls. The river was pretty high in some parts, and it was moving pretty fast. Weird thing--the ski resorts are still open. What a way to cool down on a hot summer day.

The water was cold!!

My job is okay. I'm enjoying stocking up on Nu Skin products. I won't have to buy shampoo, soap, toothpaste, or any kind of skin care products for years. Other than that it's not too exciting.

Our latest acquisition for our home was a kitchen table with six chairs. It was a garage sale deal found by Brian's mom (Thanks!). Apparently Kaysville has much better garage sales than Provo and it has an awesome DI. It matches our kitchen cabinets perfectly, and it's nice to have real chairs to sit on rather than folding chairs.

You know that cell phone commercial about the guy who gets his "monthly mugging" from his cell phone company? That used to be me. I hardly use my phone, and I was paying way too much for it. After some looking around we decided to get a pre-paid phone. I usually Skype with my family more often than I call them, and the only other person who generally calls me is Brian. So far we've been happy with what we got.