weekend update

Two weekends ago, Nate's brother and his wife were in town. We went to the Body World exhibit at the science museum and saw lungs solid black from coal, feet with six toes each, a man cut in a dozen longitudinal slices, blood vessel silhouettes of a lamb and rooster, a cross section slice of a 300 pound man, enlarged livers and hearts, and various other appetite rousing specimen. We went to Kobe for dinner, and we all had meat. "No you're not hard core, unless you live hard core!"


That Sunday, we subbed in Primary... Valiant Seven, I believe they are called. There were in fact 8 Valiant Seven which meant two kids per adult. Not bad. Nate taught most of the impromptu lesson while Aaron made jokes, Jasmine passed out candy, and I monitored Marius. Marius has autism and needs special attention. Nate and I quickly realized how smart the kid is and found it pretty easy to be patient with him. During sharing time in Primary when all the other kids were singing and learning about families in the scriptures, Marius was climbing all over Nate. "I like your golden hair," he said. He turned to me, "I like your golden hair, too. Shiny!" After church when we passed him and his mom in the hall, he got excited and told her, "These are my new teachers!" I kinda wish we were.

Just this last weekend, Nate and I went to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show and LOVED it. It's been awhile since we've been outside of our element, so walking through the tents where vendors sold their sparkling embroidered vests, polished stone horse sculptures, cowboy hats, ruffly shirts, and fancy saddles was pretty fun. We stopped at a foot cream vendor showing a video of someone's toe nails being sawed off. And then our hard-core selves had to get some fair food so we treated ourselves to some dogs. I considered the funnel cake, but felt myself gain two pounds just smelling the greasy aroma.




(Most of the comments you can hear were made by the people sitting beside or next to us. The crowd was mostly silent for the jumping unless they were clapping after a successful jump.)


I guess I should mention that the first girl we saw during the jumping competition totally wiped out. Her horse hit the top bar on a jump and flipped onto its side, throwing the girl off. The girl quickly got up, but the horse lay there kicking its feet and whipping it's head around. Some workers helped get the horse on its feet, but the crowd was traumatized. I would flinch during each jump after that, but eventually relaxed enough to enjoy it.

Well right now, I'm in the middle of this current weekend... and Nate is calling for me to watch Star Wars with him. It's his birthday weekend, so I'll post more about that tomorrow.

Pull up a chair and sit on the floor, I'll tell you a story you've heard before.

We were in the area tonight after watching the BYU basketball game at a friends house, so we swung by Nate's old house. Ten months ago, I drove 9 hours from Provo to Tempe to see Nate, and when I arrived he was waiting for me on this bench.



We got engaged the next night and waited until morning to call our parents from this bench to tell them the news. We looked like this - tired and elated.



My dad always says that he wants a bench for his grave so that people can come and sit. I think that's a great idea. Benches are good places to sit and feel love. They are made with more than one person in mind. Otherwise, they'd be chairs.

Song of the Wind

Last night, Nate and I went to Nicole's violin recital. When we arrived and sat in the back, Nicole got all bright-eyed and stared at us from up front. I didn't tell her that I was coming or that I was bringing Nate... so surprise!

I was impressed at how well she did, mostly because I never hear her talk about or play her violin even though her mom takes her to lessons once a week while I'm watching Eric. You can't tell in the low-quality video, but she's wearing a purple fluffy dress with pink, purple, and silver glitter polka-dots. She was so stinking cute.

my favorite line was - "wow."

Right after Nate left for work this morning, I got back in bed with the intention of sleeping another hour, but instead I watched Lovely, Still on Netflix Instant Play. It was wonderful. I loved every minute. I think I was teary-eyed the whole way through, because I love Nate so much. You'll understand when you watch it. And good grief, it's from 2008! How have I not heard about this? I will not be held accountable for not passing along this movie. So if you don't watch it, it's on you.

Might I suggest that you don't read about the movie before you watch it. I didn't. I only knew that it had won awards and was a little treasure of a movie. That's all you need to know, and all I'm allowing myself to say.


I'll be watching it again with Nate, and probably again and again and again...

fat

Friday morning, I used the Banana Bread recipe from SimplyRecipes.com, and then I added 2 cups of chocolate chips and about a tablespoon of cinnamon. I think this is what made it so dang good. And OF COURSE I used VERY ripe bananas. And... I doubled the batch.


Sadly, this is the last remaining piece, and I'm about to eat it. Yes, that means that Nate and I conquered two loaves in less than three days.

I promise we have been doing fun and interesting things, but fun things end up being list-type posts, and interesting things end up being too serious. For instance, the other night we went to ASU to watch a documentary put on by the International Law Society (Nate is Vice President). It was about the genocide in Rwanda, and there were ample pictures and video clips of people being killed or already dead. Some were severely injured - like a young girl who hid for over 40 days in a chapel amongst dead bodies. When they found her, she was skin and bone, her head had a huge gash, and the fingers on her right had been hacked off with a machete. You can't see things like that and not feel guilty for the comparatively easy life you live. This spurred on a conversation during the ride home about knowing how to live in moderation. Is it likely that we will give all of our excess to charities, the church, or the needy? Can we feel justified in buying a few things we want with the money we've earned? At what spiritual cost do we choose to maintain normalcy within the culture we live... when we know there are people who live with much, much less?

I visited a family yesterday after church who live in a mobile home with a floor that's sinking in. Two of the children have a disease that deteriorates their muscles and forces them to wheelchairs. The mom works with disabled children because she's "an expert," she said while nodding to her kids. Her dryer is broken, so she hangs her clothes outside... and it's been in the 40's recently. I could tell she cleaned up before we got there. I think everyone likes to make a good impression. Some people pay $60 to get their hair done, and others vacuum their sunken, stained floors.

I'm sure Nate and I will be trying to figure out how to balance our knowledge and our lifestyle for the rest of our lives. We've made some decisions here and there: switching from cell phones to land line, not having cable, selling our second car. Sure we've saved money, but we also trimmed the fat. So far, I can only define fat insofar as it relates to health. And that brings me full circle... 2 loaves of banana bread in 3 days is the fat of both varieties. A piece of banana bread is divine, but I wish I had a recipe for peace of mind.

Hanging and Sagging

Em has been on my case for awhile for not posting on our blog more. I have been thinking lately about physical fitness in general and how it relates to happiness. When I consistently work out, it doesn't mean that I won't eat fries or a plate of cookies. It just means that I won't feel guilty about it. Those things add to happiness too. Em made cookies on Sunday - we were going to take some of them to people but they are almost gone now. At least I am working out 4 times a week.

to the curb

I sat on a curb in the parking lot yesterday for about 35 minutes and took these pictures with my phone.



I had been in the bathroom when I heard pounding on the front door, the rattling of the knob, and then some more pounding. Once I got my skivvies up, I nervously peered through the peep hole out the front door and saw two men in uniforms with guns. One said, "The building is secure" into a walkie talkie. Yee gads! So I threw on a bra, grabbed my purse, and headed out the door. One of the men asked if I "didn't hear the pounding?" implying that I was a deaf idiot, to which I wanted to respond with "I was on the toilet, jerk!" but instead said, "I was in the bathroom, sir!" I didn't say that last part, but I was intimidated. He explained that there was a gas leak right behind my apartment and that everyone was to evacuate immediately. That was that.

I was reminded of a summer night when Liz, Andy, and I were sleeping out on the trampoline back home in PA. Probably around 2 a.m., we awoke to a bright light that flooded our yard and blinded us from seeing its source. We could see only the silhouette of a man as he approached and asked us, "Where is the green box?" Squinty-eyed and groggy, we said we didn't know (and had no idea what he was talking about)... and he faded back into the light and was gone as quickly as he had come. We joked about him being an alien because we didn't have a logical explanation for him until our mom shed her own light on the situation, explaining that he was probably an electrician or something. Why he needed to come in the middle of the night, we have no idea. But man, the imagination can go wild when information is lacking.

One of the firemen asked me if I was a terrorist because I had been taking pictures of their truck. I said I just thought the knobs and gadgets were pretty. See what I mean?