The Married Couple

The luxury of running water

2012-02-09T22:05:00.000+07:00

"Bookie, why is there no water?"
"There's no water? Oh, there's no water. Your soup is burning. Here call this number and ask why there's no water."
Hands me the water bill for last month, almost entirely written in Khmer.

Having running water in Cambodia is a luxury. I realize that after having no running water all through training. It's amazing to have a real shower, even if it's freezing. It's amazing to be able to really was my hands and do my dishes. And it's even more amazing to have a toilet that flushes without the use of a bucket full of water.

Having running water is also a big burden when it's not working. That means no water at all. Like no water. That means no hand washing. No washing our dishes after dinner. That means no filling our water filter that's empty. That means no showering after a long hot day. That means that you can't go to the bathroom....at all.

Bookie brought out a small bucket of water from the small cistern of rain water they have, and did our lunch dishes (I know, we're spoiled) and told us to do dinner dishes in the morning. I laid in front of the fan in my underwear until my sweat dried and I was left feeling as sticky as a little kid's hands after eating a sucker.

Two hours later...

HUZZAH, the water's back on and I shall end my night with a freezing cold shower and use of the toilet.

Khmer nails

2012-02-08T13:15:00.001+07:00

I read another volunteer's blog last week and loved how she's given everyone in her host family nicknames. So, since I haven't really introduced anyone in my host family yet, I thought I'd steal her idea. More on that later, but for now I need to show you how my host sister (henceforth known as "moto accident") khmer-ified my nails.

I have exactly 3 nail polishes in Cambodia. Cambodian women get their nails done all the time for weddings. I randomly felt like getting my nails painted so I asked my host mom (henceforth known as "bookie") how much it cost to get her nails done. She told me that Moto Accident could do my nails for free! Huzzah.

I brought out my nail polishes and Bookie and Moto Accident argued over which color my nails should be. They settled on red, "because I have white skin, and that would be soooo suh-aht(pretty).

I was very happy to find out that Bookie is going to send Moto Accident to school to learn how to do hair and nails after high school. I was very worried they would marry her off when she graduates in June. After the color is on Bookie gets the great idea to add stickers. Stickers make the ultimate Khmer nails, and thus I ended up with the ultimate Khmer nails.

Are you prepared for this?

If you look really closely you can see that the stickers are of two wedding rings as bride and groom. They're pretty much amazing. And you bet cha I got quite a few compliments on these bad boys.

Shoes in Cambodia

2012-02-02T22:02:00.000+07:00

Most people go around Cambodia wearing flip flops, or plastic sandals. I don't play that way. I wear socks, you see; this I wear flats. When packing for Cambodia I wasn't really sure what I was going to do about the rainy season. I debated bringing my rain boots. Haha, I'm so glad that I didn't. It's so stinking hot that I don't think I would have ever worn them.

I brought three pairs of shoes to Cambodia. My tennis shoes, my traveling shoes, and a cheap pair of shoes from Payless that I didn't care if they got ruined. I have a lot of shoes, so only bringing 3 pairs was tough.

Cambodia is hard on shoes. The roads are dusty and during the rainy season your feet get soaked every day. These are what my cheap payless shoes look like after the rainy season.

This is what my traveling shoes look like after living here 6 months. I love these shoes, I've taken them with me on every trip I've gone on for years. They've held up amazingly well.

and finally here are my sweet mustard yellow flats I had made here back in October. They took a while to stretch out, so I didn't wear them a lot until rather recently, but they've still taken a beating.

I'm thinking about getting another pair of leather flats made for the rainy season, so send me links, or tag me in pictures on pinterest for really cute flats.

Grammarly.com, a review

2012-01-30T12:48:00.000+07:00

A while ago I was approached to do a review for Grammarly.com, which is a resource that checks your grammar, and is supposed to be way better at it than Microsoft Word. Cambodia is full of the worst grammar, basically some of the worst as I like to call it "khmerlish" ever. All of the clothing they wear, the signs they post, even products that are being marketed are full of ridiculously incorrect grammar. So the hunt was on for some product with horrifically incorrect grammar to test.

At hotels here they often given you packets of shampoo to use. A while ago I received one that made me literally laugh out loud as I was reading it. I know they have this product written in khmer and they sell it all over my town, but this is the final English product that they're marketing to foreigners? It really could use some help. So I typed up what was written on the back into Grammarly's website to see what it would suggest.

This is exactly what the package of shampoo says. Amazing khmerlish, right? So after I plugged it into grammarly.com's Grammar Checker, this is what it showed me.

So I started working through all of the tools to fix it. The spelling, punctuation, and capitalization tools are awesome, as well as the synonyms tool. They offer you fixes right there and will replace it for you, which I really like. Then I can see what has been fixed. As I worked through the more hefty grammar problems it got a bit harder. I wish that they would give you suggestions to fix what is wrong with your actual sentence in addition to telling you what's wrong; mostly because I'm grammar lazy and don't want to figure out how to fix the sentence myself by reading about the problem and the examples of correct and incorrect sentences. Really though, it's great that it even recognizes such complex grammar points as a squinting modifier, which apparently existed in the first sentence.

After a couple of times fixing problems and then re-checking them in through their grammar review, only changing what the program suggested I change, I ended up with this.

As as you can see it's not 100% perfect, but I'd say the grammar is immensely better. There are still problems, but I think it makes a lot more sense than it did before. A native English speaker, or someone who has been speaking English for a long time probably wouldn't make most of the mistakes left in this document anyway.

Oh, and something else I found really cool about Grammarly is that it offers a plagiarism detector, and it will check your grammar according to the type of paper you're writing.

Overall, I think Grammarly.com offers a really great service. It would be great for possibly a business or foreign NGO, to offer their workers who are not particularly confident in their English writing skills, but have to write reports, or important e-mails. It would also be great for college students to use when writing essays for classes.

If you're interested, Grammarly offers a free 7-day trial, so you should try it out on an upcoming essay or important report and see how much it helps you.

Fill in the Blank Friday: Travel

2012-01-27T18:05:00.002+07:00

1. My favorite place i've ever traveled to is New York, we had a short layover there on our honeymoon and we had such a blast in the city .

2. Scotland is somewhere I'd love to go someday. (APRIL!!)

3. I pass the time on a plane (or bus, or car ride or train) by sleeping on hal, listening to music, and reading books or magazines until I get car sick .

4. My three must-haves when I travel are a camera , snacks and a cardigan

5. My favorite travel companion is my husband Hal .

6. The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is We were flying home from California and they were searching our bag over and over again, pulling out all of our dirty underwear (literally) and then they found what they were looking for, a pocket knife, a gift from Hal's grandfather he had received on the trip. Oops, we thought we had left it at his brother's house. Needless to say, after many bad looks we checked that bag .

7. The most exotic food I've ever tried while traveling is frog or shark meat here in Cambodia .

8. If I could live anywhere else, I'd live in Possibly Colorado, or Northern California .

9. I have been to eleven states in the U.S.

You can go check out Lauren's answers, and read about her adorable newborn on her blog, The little things we do

Meet My : favorite market girl and her adorable puppy

2012-01-25T14:54:00.000+07:00

Today marks 6 months of us living in Cambodia. I can't believe I've been living away from home for 6 months. I had never been away from home for more than 2 weeks before coming here.

To celebrate out 6 months here in country I'm going to start a little feature called MEET MY. It's to let you get to know the people, things, and the area that we're living in. Hopefully this will help make this blog more personal about my Peace Corp service, so I can look back on it and remember these great moments.

Today's meet my will go along with the picture that was posted in my guest post on Tina's blog.
Today, MEET MY: favorite market girl, and her adorable puppy.

This little 7 year old girl knows more English than my host mom, or my host siblings. She is, in a word, adorable. She attends my co-teacher's private school, and gets out of class as I head into class to teach. One day I was having a particularly rotten day and was waiting for the classes to let out. I was on my phone when I felt a hand on my arm. There she was squatting in front of me. She looked at me with her big beautiful Cambodian eyes and asked "when are you going to come play with my puppy?"

I hope that just broke your heart like it did mine.

I told her I would go the next day, and she asked if I was going to buy "me", the Cambodian equivalent of Ramen Noodles. Oh she knows my purchases too well.

In training we had the most adorable puppy which our family bathed on a regular basis. This is the first puppy in my town, that I've found which they bathe. Yay! That means I can pet him and play with him to my hearts content.

The best bit: he has a name, which is rare for Cambodian dogs. His name in English means "little little". The family who owns this shop knows when they see me coming, they go into their house which is at the back of the store and they bring out the puppy. Can't beat service like that!

Why I joined the Peace Corps - Guest Post

2012-01-24T13:43:00.000+07:00

Hey, There's a post up on Tina's blog : Girl With a New Life about why I decided to join the Peace Corps and Move to Cambodia. Go check it out here.

Second Christmas

2012-01-21T15:44:00.000+07:00

Remember when I bragged about how blessed we were by our families for Christmas? Well, since it takes packages at least 2 weeks to get here, we were even more blessed thanks to our siblings, and we got to have Second Christmas. It's pretty much like second breakfast, but even better because we get lots of food.

First our very timely Christmas tree arrived.

Then we had a great package from Hal's brothers.

I'm pretty sure Hal ate those stake strips non stop for 3 days. He cut them up on put them on everything we ate. He shared some with our host mom and she said it was delicious, but they don't have meat like that in Cambodia. She was rather surprised when we told her it was beef.

And Jessi, I cannot believe all that you fit all of that in the package. We've been enjoying home made mashed potatoes, and wish that the gravy would never end, that was the perfect thing to send us!

Lastly, we had a great package from my sister

She sent me the ingredients to make these bad boys, and man I can't wait to make them! I've been saving to make them until another volunteer got his brown sugar and cinnamon pop tarts, and then we're going to have a food-estival. And good news, he just got them, so candy cane and white chocolate nutty buddies (puppy chow) coming our way! Hal was super stoked, usually he can never eat candy canes because he's allergic to red 40, but my sister sent organic ones!

Don't worry, he was going for the creepy look.

Planning a trip to Scotland

2012-01-17T22:09:00.001+07:00

We've realized something lately. We're going to have to eventually ET, (that means early terminate) Because of Hal's acceptance to BYU's accounting program we have to be back in the US by August 2013, and we wouldn't officially be done with our service until early October 2013, so we'll to ET like a month and a half early. If you ET you can't opt for the money for your plane ticket and travel. You have to take the plane ticket directly home. That put a kink in our plans to hit Europe on our way home. But you know what? I have a month off from teaching school in April, and I have an amazing husband, who is taking me on my dream vacation. He's taking me here.

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I've been a wee bit obsessed with Scotland for as long as I can remember. Have you ever felt drawn to someplace? I feel drawn to Scotland.

So we've got the approval and have started planning our trip. Neither of us have ever been to Europe before, so we we need your advice. Have you ever been to Scotland? Have you ever been there in early April? What was your favorite thing you saw there? Have you ever rented a car in Europe before?

We've decided to fly into Glasgow, rent a car and see the countryside. Here's a map of our tentative trip.

What do you think? We also have one night in London on layover. What's the best thing to do in London between 6 pm and 6 am? What's your favorite place to eat?

Please, give me your advice and share your stories of visiting the UK with us. We're so excited about this, we had to share our excitement with you all!

2011 in Review

2012-01-09T18:41:00.075+07:00

I know this is a bit late. I just got back to blogging after the holidays and saw them on all of the blogs and thought it was so great to review what everyone has gone through in the last year. We had a pretty big year this year, so I thought it would be fun to do.

This year I did a photo shoot with Duston Todd

I went snowboarding for the first time with Hal

We both said goodbye and sent our little brothers off on missions

We went to San Fransisco and Sacramento with Hal's family

We bought a baby duck, and named it Sir Fitzwilliam Duckery, even though it's a girl

My friend Monica got married and I turned 24

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We went to the Redwoods with some of our favorite people

We joined the Peace Corps and moved to Cambodia

We celebrated 3 years of marriage

We became official Peace Corps Volunteers

We visited Angkor Wat

We spent our first holidays away from our families

Going through all of this again I can't believe we did all of this in one year. We really did have a life changing year. I'm so glad we made the decisions we did, and that we were able to have all of these incredible experiences. I can't wait to see all that 2012 has in store for us!

New Years in Sihanoukville

2012-01-05T13:09:00.001+07:00

Have you ever counted down the New Year with fireworks lighting up the ocean while standing next to your husband on the Gulf of Thailand? I now can say that I have. Since we stayed at site for Christmas, we decided to treat ourselves for New Years to a nice vacation in Sihanoukville, a big tourist spot in the Gulf of Thailand. We stayed on Otres Beach at the newly built Moonlight Rock Resort which is far away from the big foreigner and the khmer beaches, and is much more calm and relaxing. There weren't a lot of tourists there, but there was still delicious food, and even more beach for us to relax on.

We had the most fabulous time celebrating New Years on the beach. With all of the shenanigans we participated in on New Years Eve, it just goes to show you don't need a big fancy party to have the most fabulous time.

This was surely the worst trip we've been on for travel. Just in bus time it would take us over 11 hours from our site to get to Sihanoukville. Travel in Cambodia is hard enough, but add in New Years and you have people siting in the aisles of buses. Even with the tiring travel to get there, and back home I would do it all again in a heartbeat. It was seriously one of the best vacations we've had. Thank you to all of our fellow PCVs who joined us and made for such an adventurous trip. Those times back home where I just wanted to go on an adventure so badly; well, this weekend was one of those adventures I was looking for.

Christmas in Cambodia

2011-12-28T13:08:00.000+07:00

This Christmas was the first one I have spent away from my family. I was nervous and a sad, but it did not really disappoint.

Christams Eve Eve started off with a bang. I was cleaning our room before heading to school and found this little gem, wishing us an early Merry Christmas.

I promptly called Hal, and made him come home to take care of it. Luckily the permethrin had already gotten to him and he was already dying. My host mom came in for a look and was poking him and touching him with her hands! Then she realized I was cleaning and swept out our room for us.

-Then my great start to a morning continued when I met two Japanese bikers who came to my school. They had ridden all the way here on their bikes from Portugal. Crazy!
-Then I met a student from my school who got a scholarship to study in Signapore. She's been there for 4 months and her English was amazing. It gave me great hope for my work here.
- The cherry on top of my Christmas Eve Eve? The post office called, our packages came! Hal went into town to get them. Ants were all over the big one, but he had to ride home with it on his lap. Best part? I can actually say he had ants in his pants!

The next day we had a Christmas party at my co-teacher's private school. It was like a kid's birthday party on crack.

I'm pretty sure almost every child in the village was there. When I tried to take a picture with my host niece, and my favorite market girl we were just swarmed with children. It was insane. P.S. the bigger one is my host niece, isn't she the most beautiful little girl?

My co-teacher even got a Christmas tree! I was like a kid in a candy store when she put this up. I was worse than the kids who had never seen a Christmas tre before. I was practically pushing them out of the way to look at everything. It's my first Christmas away....that's my excuse.

The next day was finally Christmas YAY! My family was SO amazing and 2 of the 3 packages they sent came on time. They wrapped so many presents that it really felt like Christmas when Hal dumped them all in my lap. Sorry I don't have any pictures of opening them, we were too busy skyping with family.

Our families were SO generous in thinking of us this Christmas season. Look at what my family sent us? It was more than we could have ever hoped for, and Hal's parents bought us a toaster oven because they know how much I love me some baked goods. We were seriously blown away by love and generosity this Christmas season.

After presents we headed over to the party put on by the VSOs in our town. It was so nice of them to invite us.

We finished the night, by realizing that our family did want to celebrate the holiday, the only way they know how to celebrate... KARAOKE!

We finished our Christmas in Cambodia, with lots of khmer dancing around the living room pole and lots of tone deaf singing, which really is no different than an actual pop star singing it, so all in all it was fabulous.

Merry Christmas from Cambodia

2011-12-25T08:32:00.000+07:00

My students and I worked really hard on this all month long. They were such great sports and got really excited for Christmas along with me, so they let me record this and said I could share it with my family and friends. Merry Christmas all!

Christmas in Cambodia: Fill in the blank Friday

2011-12-23T14:50:00.000+07:00

1. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to be Christmas cheer. When you're excited about it other people pick up on that. Also, Christmas music does it real fast for me. .

2. The thing I love most about Christmas is being around family and celebrating this important time of the year with those that I love most. I love how magical it feels.

3. The holiday season is a time for being with those your love. Celebrating the different meanings of each holiday. Celebrating the birth of Christ .

4. My favorite thing to eat at the holidays is Usually turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, and then making an sandwich out of it for days after the big event. Oh man, I'm craving turkey so bad. It's so hard to find in this country!

5. I will be spending Christmas In my little studio room with Hal. My family sent us an amazingly big package that I can't wait to open. We're making sugar cookies in the toaster oven that Hal's parents paid for, for Christmas, and going to a Christmas party at a VSO's house who lives in our town .

6. Tis better to (give or receive?) Receiving gifts is fun, but I really love to find the perfect gift for each person. It's a special thrill I get, thinking of, and finding each gift. Kind of bummed I couldn't do that this year, but I did leave Christmas presents for all of our family before we left in July .

7. I'm dreaming of a family filled Christmas. (thanks to skype)

Combating Homesickness

2011-12-19T17:50:00.001+07:00

Lately I've been so homesick. Maybe it's the fact that we've been living here for about 5 months now. Maybe it's because I've never been away from my family for Christmas, but it feels more than that.

I think the biggest thing that has been making me homesick is the fact that I keep dreaming about my family. I keep dreaming about my sisters, but what's weird is I keep dreaming about my mother. I hardly ever dream about my mom. This month marks 5 years since she passed away.

Remember when I posted about this necklace I had made?

It says: I hold your heart in mine. I had it made in remembrance of my mother. Just because she wasn't there in person for big events such as my graduation or my wedding doesn't mean that she wasn't there. I guess the one thing I've used to combat homesickness is what this necklace represents, that she's with me, always. Even though I can text my sister when I want to talk to my family, it's different to feel like someone's spirit and heart is there with you, supporting you, and proud of you. I feel really lucky to have that sort of support behind me everyday. So although dreaming about my sisters makes me even more homesick, dreaming about my mom is comforting.

This just felt like something I needed to sit down and write, and get off my chest, but on a lighter note...Please tell me what you do to combat homesickness?

Rain Storms

2011-12-18T14:26:00.000+07:00

November and December marks the end of the rainy season, and the beginning of the dry, "cold" season. While to the Khmer people it's freezing and they're bundled up in hoodies, long pants and socks with their flip flops, we're just to the point of not needing a fan to sleep at night, and maybe a cardigan early in the morning.

We had a cold snap for a few days and I was actually cold! We'd spent 4 months trying to adjust to the heat, so that 68 degrees felt freezing. It was actually feeling a little Christmasy since the temperature dropped, but sadly it's now back up to the normal "cold season" temperatures, a balmy 85 degrees. I told my co-teacher how cold it is in my home right now, and he told me maybe if it was that cold here that everyone would die.

A little bit ago we had the most crazy intense random rain storm. While we thought it was fabulous, it left the Khmer people wondering why it was raining in the dry season. It rained so hard I got soaked just standing in the doorway taking these pictures. The rain photographed like snow...so let's pretend, Cambodia sent some snow for Christmas..snow that you can bathe in.

Oh and yes, Hal is taking a shower outside. And yes, that is a common occurrence in Cambodia every day. We have the treat of watching our neighbors shower while we make dinner every day, thanks to the window that faces their yard. Not sure which came first, the window, or that shower spot. Maybe it's a chicken and egg debate ending only in being thankful for kromas...the large scarf like thing men wear around, and wear when they shower outside.

Angkor Wat

2011-12-13T13:35:00.000+07:00

Did you know...that if you go to Angkor Wat at 5 to see the sunset they'll let you in for free? And they might let you in early if it's just you on your bike and you speak to them in Khmer. But if you go in a group of 5 tuk tuks they might not let you in early, but 5:20 is still enough time to see the sunset.

There was a moment when we were staring up at the heart of Angkor Wat, the towers from the first picture, the ones you see all over post cards, the ones on the flag. We were wondering if we could go inside them, since the ancient stairs were blocked off, when one of my friends comes running around the corner, there were stairs we could go up. So we all take off running, through Angkor Wat, at sunset, just us. I stopped and though dang, this is like National Treasure, is this actually happening? Sadly when we made it over there the guards were helping the last people out and then continued to escort us the rest of the way out. I still got some cool shots, much to their chagrin.

If you make it to Cambodia, so see Angkor Wat. It's amazing. I had no idea there were so many complexes of temples. They say to actually see it, it takes 3 days. I can't wait to go back and spend more time there.

Siem Reap

2011-12-07T12:48:00.000+07:00

This weekend we went to Siem Reap (The town where Angkor Wat is) for the annual half marathon. There were a lot of PCVs either running the half, the 10k, or biking 30k. While I was too lazy to go and run, I was not too lazy to go into town to ~~eat tons of western food~~, support the racers.

Siem Reap is like going to Disneyland. It's a town purely built around tourism. Sorry if it's a newsflash for those planning trips to Angkor Wat, but going there is not seeing the real Cambodia. It's like a dream being there. I'm not saying I look down on it or anything, because let's be real, after being at site with ramen noodles being the closest thing to western food that you eat for two months, I worship Siem Reap. The best western food I've had in all of Cambodia? Hands down in Siem Reap. It was rough calculating how much we spent just on food this weekend. All the money we've been saving by eating cheap Khmer food is suddenly gone, and has most likely appeared on my waistline.

Now his leads us to the thing that all PCVs spend most of their time talking about: FOOD. I'm creating a guide to Cambodia, where I'll list cities, places to stay, and where to eat, but until then let me list some of the best places I ate this weekend.

-Il Forno - Best Italian food I've ever had in my life, everyone at the table agreed.
-F For Felafel - Yummy, and giant portions for only $5. We shared and were both full
-Ivy - $1 Tapas? Pumpkin Creme Brulee...need I say more?

I hope that gives you a view of how much we stuffed our faces this weekend, and I hope that if you ever get the chance to go to Siem Reap, that you will enjoy the city too. Oh, and look forward to my post about going to Angkor Wat!

Country Love Garden

2011-12-01T12:16:00.000+07:00

While my provincial town may not be very western, or have too many attractions, it does have one really cool attraction. It has the Country Love Garden. I didn't really know what to expect when another PCV told me it was like mini golf, without the golf. The garden just blew away my expectations, it was fabulous. Seeing all of the strange statues, just plopped down in the middle of a garden, the dinosaurs, the minotaurs, and the kitty cats, all very reminiscent of their natural habitats.

And it came complete with an awesome playground area.

Now do you understand the description, of mini golf, without the golf? This is where people in the area go to get their engagement pictures taken, and after going, I can't imagine why they wouldn't want their picture taken next to a giant gorilla,a dinosaur, or even a very anatomically correct family of tigers.

I will warn you, this garden comes with an odd amount of phallic symbols...take another look at the gorilla.

Cambodia's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

2011-11-25T17:13:00.003+07:00

Well you know how oven things go awry and someone gets hurt on holidays? Well apparently this is a world wide thing. Sorry to Danielle who cut her finger open trying to help clean up. After sadness and worry, what's the way most people deal with that....laughter.

So I walk into a room and decide that we need our own rendition of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, so that this will actually feel like Thanksgiving. Oh, and it happened...and it was amazing. Are you ready for picture overload?

We started off with a bang, a new edition to the line up, we were so energetic at this point, they hoisted me up above their heads. You can see through the progression of the photos and as the turkey sleep sets in, we had to get more creative with floats closer to the ground. I'm sure you're wondering what can Peace Corps Volunteers do with just themselves and a camera...well, prepared to be amazed.

And this is what happens when you leave Peace Corps Volunteers alone in an air conditioned conference room.

Someone go buy something for me, only on sale though.

Thanksgiving in Cambodia.

2011-11-23T17:07:00.001+07:00

While our plans to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, all together as K5 volunteers changed, thanks for Peace Corps inevitable last minute changes, we were still able to make the best of it and have a blast with our half of the volunteers, a week early.

Now really a huge thanks has to go to the K4's who spent all day slaving in a kitchen to create a wonderful feast for us. They did an amazing job. That turkey hit the spot just right, and I was thoroughly satisfied. Who knew that you could make turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pasta salad, and an almost endless amount of baked goods in a country where they have turkeys, but don't eat them, and a country where ovens practically don't exist? Well, they did it. And many thanks to the staff for bringing some of the deliciousness from the lovely western stores that exist in Phnom Penh. All of this definitely made for a lovely Thanksgiving night with my Peace Corps family.

You see that napkin overflowing with dessert? Yeah, that's my dessert plate, since I didn't have room on my actual plate. And yes, I did eat them all. You can't turn down baked goods in this country, they come few and far between.

The thing I am the most thankful for on this day? That Hal is brilliant and made a turkey, mashed potato, cranberry sandwich, and took a handful of brownies, and hid them in our mini fridge. We had the best free lunch the next day, and we had time to take a nap. Best 24 hours yet in Cambodia? It's definitely a contender.

Stay tuned for the Peace Corps Cambodia version of the Macy's Day Parade.

Guy Fawkes Celebration

2011-11-13T11:59:00.000+07:00

I'm so glad that both the VSO and Peace Corps volunteers that live in my provincial town love to celebrate and get together as much as I do. I am also very glad that the VSO (same thing as Peace Corps, but not from America) volunteers want to share their culture with us! We have two British voluteers that live in our town with us, and one more that lives in the provincial town. So when Guy Fawkes day came around, you bet your bottom dollar that we celebrated. And many thanks to Hannah for letting me steal your pictures.

Guy Fawkes was a man who tried to blow up palace and kill the king in the 1600s. Unfortunately for him, he was discovered and tortured before being killed. So we thought we were celebrating his attempt at this and his fight for what he thought was right, you know, American ideals. Turns out the celebrate that was unsuccessful burn a "Guy" in a bonfire on November 5th every day.

We started with preparing a bonfire, thanks to Hal's handy dandy eagle scout skills we had one ready in no time.

Then Pete and John hoisted up our "Guy"

Then the bonfire really began. I was surprised by how fast his "lacoste" pants caught on fire. (side note, when you get pants made here, they sew designer labels into them, so many pants say Lacoste or Levis)

We continued the celebration with the traditional bobbing for apples and fireworks. Who knew you could find bottlerockets and sparklers in a small town in Cambodia?

And we ended the night by sharing some American culture and making s'mores on the ashes of Guy Fawkes.

Snakes in Cambodia.

2011-11-07T14:49:00.001+07:00

Have you ever heard of the Indo Chinese Spitting Cobra? Maybe the Malayan or Banded Crait?

Images Via

How about the King Cobra? Before coming to Cambodia I had at least heard of that one. It always seemed like the scariest snake to me. Well, in general snakes freak me out...

Cambodia has a lot of poisonous snakes. The other day we were home in the afternoon and our host mother came knocking on our door saying the Khmer word for snake. Of course immediately Hal followed her. I toted a long after finding my camera. This is the scene I came upon.

Our next door neighbor's dog found a cobra in their yard. They pinned it down with a long stick that had one pointy head. They pierced it through the hood. Apparently they stuck a board under it's head after it was binned down and then they proceeded to chop off it's head with a machete. I'm really glad that they took it seriously as many people get bit just standing around in a circle looking at the snake they found.

I'd say the snake was at least 4 feet long. Every time Hal tells this story the length of the snake gets longer. He tried to convince me it was 5 feet yesterday, but when talking to his parents last night he could have sworn it was 6.

We asked if it was dinner. Their response, surprisingly was...no. Too good for the snake, but not too good for the dog, eh?

Pumpkin Carving Cambodia Style

2011-11-03T15:10:00.000+07:00

Halloween is my favorite holiday and was not included on my list when I prepared myself for missing the holidays, so when I realized that I was going to miss any resemblance of Halloween I was pretty bummed. Then I thought about it, you know, this is supposed to be a cultural exchange, so I decided to share some of my culture with my host family, and we carved "pumpkins".

They don't have pumpkins here, like what they have in the US, but they were going to have to do. Here's our tiny baby pumpkins.

Hal set to work on carving his.

Our family was very interested in what we were doing. They're generally interested in anything that we are making in the kitchen, but once they realized we weren't making food they were a little confused. Once we broke out the candles and started cutting them, I'm pretty sure they were even more confused. But by the end of our carving session, I think they were pretty impressed with our pumpkin work. So even though they probably have no idea why we put faces on pumpkins and lit a candle inside of them, they liked it enough to want to be taught how to do it.

The bananas in the background just add to the exchange, as they were given to us by our family, from one of the million banana trees in the backyard. So I say cultural exchange = success.

Swear In

2011-10-28T08:58:00.039+07:00

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I know I'm a little bit late on this post, as I've already blogged a little bit about life at permanent site, but the pictures from our swearing in are just too great to not post. Now, remember how in my last post I said my camera was acting up and finally died? Well, it was acting up this day, and this was the only picture I got. Hal had to teach someone to tie a tie right before we left for swear in.

So thanks to everyone for letting me steal these pictures from facebook!

Our Peace Corps swearing in was legit. At least I thought it was, we had the Minister of Health there, who gave a speech, and went way off his speech so we all had no idea what he was saying since he was speaking all in Khmer. It was awesome.

Did you know that Peace Corps Volunteers take the same oath as the military?

So...now you get to see pictures of us celebrating! It was the last day that we were all together, and we were finally volunteers after 9 weeks of training. And, we were dressed to the nines!

Many girls wore traditional wedding outfits. The skirts are called sampots. They are the traditional Khmer skirts that I have to wear every day to teach. You can get really expensive silk ones that are just gorgeous, but those are mainly for weddings. The tops, as you will see I didn't get one made, but they are barbie princess-o-licious!

Enough to make any little girl playing dress up seriously jealous, no? The girl in the middle, my friend Erica had my favorite top of the day!

These are two of my closest friends I made during training, holla to Erica and Stewart.

The sweet gang sign they made up to represent us as a group, that's supposed to be K5, as we're the 5th group of volunteers in the country.

Don't mind the fingers in this picture, it's still fabulous. This is everyone from my training village, we totally had the best training village, Traing showed everyone else up!

We had to have a sweet party all together that night, as every PCV in Cambodia was in Phnom Penh, I'm not one to go out and party very often, but I had a blast that night.

And check it out, we made the news, and I'm even in the picture!

Failures vs. Successes

2011-10-23T20:14:00.001+07:00

While some would view today as a fail,

-My camera finally broke : Fail

-I forgot my old cell phone to use as a spare because I knew my camera was acting up: Fail

-We went to the local mountain pagoda and the monkeys were not there: Fail

-No pictures of said trip, as camera broke: Fail

-I forgot to put on deodorant AND sun screen: Ultimate Fail

I'm choosing to see it as a giant success

-We rode our bikes through a flooded road where the water level was up to the peddles, and made it across with only our shoes wet: Success

-The chicken on a stick lady was at the market so we had a lovely picnic at the pagoda: Success (and it's delicious!)

-Our market finally has apples, it tasted like the most delicious apple I've ever had: Success

-The pagoda was extremely beautiful, and although I realized how much more I need to get in shape, hiking all of those stairs gave us the most spectacular view of our area: Success

-We bought baby sized pumpkins to carve for Halloween, since they don't do Halloween here: Success

-We found the only monk at the pagoda who spoke any English, he asked us if we were on Facebook, and then proceeded to give us his legit business card with his skype and facebook names...only in Cambodia: Success

-We ran into one of the VSO volunteers at the pagoda and his newly arrived girlfriend, and had a wonderful time talking with them: Success

-We had fettucine with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dinner, and it was delicious: Success

-We found Fanta Sarsi, the Fanta version of Rootbeer in our local market: Ultimate Success!!

This is an adventure.

2011-10-21T12:17:00.000+07:00

I want to be really open and honest about my Peace Corps experience, because I think to outsiders it's often romanticized, and after you go home, the bad things kind of seem to fade away and you can only remember the good times, so I am going to try and do my best to document both the good and bad times. And please, if you read my posts, or any PCV's posts lend your support, a PCV can't ever have enough support.

We have now been officially at our site for just over two whole weeks! It is a strange feeling to go from having 20 people around you all the time for two months to having 60 people around you all the time for a week to having just your husband around you for the next two years.

We had a hard first week at site. Well, mostly had a hard couple of days there within the first week. It was hard for me because things weren't what I expected. All along they said have no expectations, I didn't really think I had any, but then they kind of led you to have some expectations of how things would go, with getting set up working at site. You get to site, go to school and start observing all of the English teachers, and then pick your co teachers from there. That's what I expected. That is not what happened. My school director picked my co-teachers for me, before I even got to site. This made me feel much discouraged in the beginning.

It has been slow going at the school. I still don't have my schedule figured out as the school director just changed all of the English teacher's schedules this week. I also haven't been able to observe one of my co-teaches yet, mostly because well, he hasn't showed up to class when we agreed, but I guess such is life in Cambodia. I'm slowly learning to be more flexible, which if I can achieve this, it would probably make coming out here all worth it, especially in Hal's eyes, as back home I was often very rigid with plan and time changes.

After struggling for a few days I made a list, benefits of going home and benefits of staying. As I wrote the last item on my to stay list I realized that I would never go home right now, that I'm supposed to be here. Making this decision made me feel a lot better. It doesn't make living in Cambodia a whole lot easier, but it makes me feel happier living here.

After that I started to look on the bright side. At least my school director picked some good teachers, who I'm excited to work with. Hal has been trying to involve me with his work at the Health Center, because even though I'm here as an English teacher, I am also very interested in the work of the midwives. We have a "soda pop lady", we found the "nom jake" the fried bananas, which are my favorite treat, one of my co-teachers has been SO sweet and has taken us out to dinner twice, we met her friends, and one lives across the street from us. I don't think she knows it yet, but she's going to be my friend too. It feels good to realize all of the amazing things about living in Cambodia.

As I told Hal last night. I hate missing out on things back home, especially my family, but back home I felt like I was missing out on an adventure. Hal told me that we need to make sure that this is an adventure then. Hopefully that will be our moto while living here, This is an adventure.

Mad Men

2011-10-16T12:41:00.001+07:00

Well now that we're at permanent site finally we have a lot of free time. Especially right now as I'm just observing teachers and figuring out my schedule for teaching. We had such an awesome plan to go to this mountain wat about 4 km away from here. Apparently there are wild monkeys there. We had a plan. We were just going to watch 1 episode of Mad Men and then go in the afternoon. Umm, a season and a half later it was 8 pm and we hadn't left the house all day. Good thing we had some food stored here, otherwise we couldn't have accomplished an entire day of Mad Men. So...here are my thoughts about this show.

Umm, I love it. I loved the first three seasons and ate it up and wanted to watch it all the time.Luckily I was busy all the time during training, or else I probably would have watched all 4 seasons by now.

I have a serious girl crush on January Jones after watching this show. And a real crush on Jon Hamm. (Anyone remember him from 30 Rock? haha, pre-mad men sexy days).

But we just started the 4th season and it's so different. My love for Betty Draper is almost gone. And Don is just a drunk. Please, someone tell me that there is a method to the madness? And that I'll still love the show at the end of this season.

I am so bummed that season 5 doesn't start until March, and then I'll have to wait until it's done airing to find it at some little shop for like $6 or something. Gah, anyone know of a website that would work in Cambodia where I can watch current shows happening in the US? I have a lot of free time and am missing 30 Rock!

Pan Am looked so good, has anyone been watching it? Ok, let's just face it, I love time period shows.

P.S. You guys should let me know of new TV shows that come out that you love, so I can see if I can find them here come May or June. And the same for movies!

Update: Just finished season 4 and I'm even more mad!(pun intended) Seriously, her? Faye was way better. Ugh, March better come quick, although they always skip forward, never starting where they left off.

Pchum Ben

2011-10-10T18:39:00.000+07:00

Pchum Ben is a Cambodian holiday that is related to the Buddhist religion. The holiday is for Cambodians to pay respects to their deceased ancestors. The basis for the holiday is that the gates of Hell open and their ancestors who are there need to be fed, so they go to the pagoda very early in the morning to "throw sticky rice".

We got up at 2:30 a.m. Yes, A.M. We saw a text that we didn't actually have to get up until 3. So I went back to bed, and Hal stayed up. We met another volunteer at the end of our street because her host mom wouldn't let her out that early without making sure that she wasn't going alone. We road about a kilometer down to my teacher's house where we met about 10 other people and we rode off to the pagoda. Have you ever looked at the stars in a small Cambodian village at 3 am? I wish I could have captured it in a picture, it was the most amazing sky I've ever seen.

We got to the pagoda around 3:30 and apparently were the first ones there, so we ended up waking all of the monks up. We waited in the pagoda for a while with nothing really happening except more people arriving. Around 4 they started the chanting. Sometimes I wonder if even Cambodians can understand the chanting.

After about 20 minutes of some men chanting, we joined the monks in a different temple within the pagoda grounds. Everyone put their plates of sticky rice down and then the monks started chanting. After about another 20 minutes of chanting the fun began.

Surrounding this temple were about 10 of these baby sized temples with small boxes next to them where you toss the sticky rice. Hal and I got our own place of sticky rice balls to throw in the boxes.

It was a really cool experience to get up that early and to take part of an important religious holiday. Pchum Ben is one of the top holidays here in Cambodia. It's what I call the equivalent of Thanksgiving for Cambodians because everyone comes "home" for 3 days. Pchum Ben actually lasts 15 days, but the last 3 days are the most important, and it's what everyone comes home for. I loved meeting all of my yay's (host grandmother) children. Now that we're at permanent site with our new family, I am so glad that I was able to spend that holiday with the family that I had grown to love for 2 months. We're already planning our trip back to visit. Our yay told us we must come during mango season. mmm mangoes.

Transportation in Cambodia.

2011-10-03T19:02:00.000+07:00

Transport in Cambodia is a funny thing, really I guess it's more of a dangerous thing. There are lots of different modes of transport in Cambodia. Our main mode is a bike. We ride our bikes everywhere. I'm psyched to have super fit legs at the end of two years! It is a bummer that because the roads are often dirt or just really crappy you can get flat tires a lot.

During training we took what's called a romorque (or "roma") to our big meetings every week. They are like a hay ride, minus the hay and tractor and add in a moto and rust. If you're quick and grab on the back it can make for a fast bike ride.

As Peace Corps Volunteers we aren't allowed really to ride motos, but that doesn't mean that we don't interact with motos every single day. It's probably the biggest mode of transport in Cambdoia. There are so many of them on the road and they drive super fast and don't really have any respect for anything else on the road, especially bicyclists. They often drive on the wrong side of the road, and often appear out of no where.

And that's why my very first week in my training village I was hit by a moto. I was late to class, and missed my turn off, so I had to turn around. I looked behind me and didn't see anything so I started to turn, and that's when I was T-boned by a moto. I'm not really sure what happened as it all happened really fast, we both went down and at one point I remember the moto was on top of me. I don't know if it was the adrenaline, or if it was something else, but I wasn't in any pain.

The people pulled their moto off of me and many other people stopped to help me collect all of the papers from my basket that were now thrown all over the road. There were people screaming at me in Khmer from so many directions, so I was lucky when a man who spoke English stopped to help me. He actually fixed my bike so I could ride to class. All I could think about was how I was late for class. He even followed me to my class, because he found my key on the road. It was probably a good thing, because he told my teachers what happened. When I sat down to finally get looked at it all just came out, just talking about what happened made me cry, I kind of hate that adrenaline does that to me.

I was really lucky though. I wasn't seriously hurt at all. I had some scratches, and some big bruises, and definitely limped for about a week, but for being hit by a moto I was seriously lucky. This is the only evidence of my moto accident.

My tid bit of advice for riding bikes in a moto country...wear your helmet, I wore mine and it probably helped save my life. Also, always double or triple look both ways to see if something is coming, because often times there's a moto headed down the street on the wrong side of the road.

Rice Fields

2011-09-28T11:33:00.000+07:00

The town where we're doing our training is not very large, in fact it's the smallest of the 3 current training villages. They had to split us up into 3 villages since there are 60 of us trainees. Because our village is rather small, it consists of what most of rural Cambodia consists of: rice fields.

Rice fields are very simple, yet they are stunningly beautiful. Everytime I ride past the edge of town I am amazed at how beautiful Cambodia is. The endless rice fields with palm trees (a symbol of Cambodia) off in the distance. It just seems so serene.

We took a back road through the rice fields a few weeks back and it was amazing. We met a group of men who fish in the rice fields. Who knew that they were so full of fish, crabs, snakes, and many other little creatures.

One of my friends had the opportunity to throw a net out and try his luck at fishing in a rice field. Alas, he had no luck, but a fisherman did come show us his catch of the day. Too bad it was covered in leeches, Hal's one big fear. And too bad he didn't notice the leeches until after I took this picture.

Kampot

2011-09-25T11:30:00.000+07:00

This past weekend we had a mini vacation to Kampot town. It is much bigger than the provincial town here at our training site, and even has some western food restaurants, so I was really excited. It turned out to be, as I like to call it a "foodcation" The whole trip was centered around eating. It was our third anniversary earlier in the week, so we used this as an opportunity to splurge on food and hotel. A good guesthouse was recommended, and ended up being where most trainees stayed, so we splurged and got AC! It's nice to come back at the end of the day and not sweat in your room. Sometimes a fan just doesn't do enough.

Kampot has a beautiful river, and along the river are strings of restaurants with western food. The other side of the river is the "khmer side"where the market and Khmer restaurants are located.

We found this particularly delicious restaurant, run by a british man. He had ribs, and mashed potatoes, and everything delicious you could think of. We went there for our friend's birthday dinner, and ended up there again for lunch the next day.

Do you see that pie in front of her? Now I am not the biggest fan of chocolate desserts, but this, this was the most delicious chocolately pie I've ever had. It tasted like the best brownie I've eaten. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

After eating lunch they brought out my order of mashed potatoes, but I was literally so full I couldn't eat anything, so Hal asked them to "take it away" so a few minutes later the waitress brought it in a "take away" bag for us. Oops, it was a British restaurant after all. I was glad to have the potatoes later, because even cold they were better than most Khmer food.

And now we are in our very last week of training before becoming actual Peace Corps Volunteers. Wish us luck, we will be sworn in, in one week, and one day.

Site Announcement

2011-09-16T16:12:00.000+07:00

This last week Hal and I found out where we are moving for the next two years! I really liked how they told us the news. We started out after a lunch of pizza from Phnom Penh. Pizza!! It had been so long since we'd had pizza, people literally ate an entire pizza themselves. I had just downed a dragon fruit because I thought we were having more Khmer food for lunch. Much to my dismay I was too full to eat more than 3 pieces.

After lunch they gave us a commitment speech. It was actually a really nice speech, and helped build up the anticipation, since they wouldn't let us go upstairs, to our normal meeting room.

We were so surprised when we went up there and they had taped to the floor a map of the Cambodian provinces, and there were numbers all throughout the each province, obviously, everyone's sites. So they started out by calling a number out of a box and that number had someone's name attached, and then they handed you a large envelope which said your province and site name on it.

I was lucky and was probably in the first 10 people called. Good news, I got the site I wanted! I can't tell you exactly where we're moving, but we're going to the north.
Below is everyone going to our province

The very next day we headed out for site visit. We spent all day on a bus. I think we got in around 7 or 8, which is like almost midnight by Cambodian standards. We stayed one night in our provincial town(the biggest town in that province) and then the next morning we met our host families and went to our prospective villages. It was lonely being the only ones in our village, but I think we'll really like it there.

We visited Hal's Health Center (above), and the director was very friendly. It took us a while to track down the school director, but apparently he had been trying to track me down as well, so I was able to meet with him also. My school it seems is rather large, they have 8 English teachers, which is more than anyone I've talked to.

Our host family was awesome, and their house is pretty nice! We only have a small room, but hey, we have running water! I haven't had running water since we got here! And the best part of their house? In our bathroom, is a FLUSHING toilet. You don't know how amazing that word is until you've been using a bucket to clean yourself for two months.

We're back in our training villages for another couple of weeks. I must say, I'm really going to miss living with my training host familiy. They are so sweet and loving, and I even missed them for the 5 days that we were gone.

It feels good to be "home", but I'm sure soon enough, the north will feel like home too.

Kampuchea Vs. USA

2011-09-06T17:15:00.000+07:00

As you may have noticed from my previous posts, things are done a little bit different around here. There are some things that are easier to adjust to than others. For example some things that were not too hard to adjust to are:

-bugs being everywhere. I thought this would bother me, but once you realize the spiders never leave their webs and catch the mosquitos that are constantly biting you, you learn to not be bothered by the spiders. Huge, as I call them "turantulasourus" spiders hanging out with you while you shower is a big more bothersome, but you learn to deal with it. I call those, I'm not conditioning my hair days.

-Rains. You just kind of go with the flow here. We are constantly subject to the weather here. It starts pouring...so you wait a few minutes to see if it will stop, and then you strap on a rain coat, and head to class. Hey, at least you're not sweating.

-Riding your bike everywhere. It's free, and much easier than trying to find transportation. I've ridden my bike more in the last month than I have in probably the last 15 years. On the plus side, I love my bike, and I'm sure I'm going to have awesomely fit legs when I get home.

-Wearing bug spray like it's going out of style. It beats getting dengue.

Other things are not so easy to adjust to:

-Always being sweaty. For instance right now, I am sweating. It is the rainy season here and therefore, it's always humid. It's humid right after it rains, and all day until it rains. It's humid when you wake up. Right now, you just kind of can't escape it, so slowly we've been adjusting to the heat.

-Being bitten by bugs. No matter how much bug spray you put on, you will sweat it off, and when you're spending time with your family after dinner, you will get bit...a lot. I hate mosquitoes.

-Laundry. No washing machines here. Everything is done by hand with some buckets, some soap, and two hands. One day my neighbor (my yay's sister) came over when we were doing laundry, she laughed at us and proceeded to school us at doing laundry. She was literally like 20 times faster than we were. Maybe one day I'll reach that level of skill. Until then, I'll continue to be slow and add fabric softener, not so my clothes will be softer, but so they won't stink because it takes them 2 days to dry.

Even though some things are harder to adjust to, it's nice to feel like I'm doing things the Cambodia way. Next week we leave to visit our permanent site. I'm nervous, and I really want to be be able to integrate into my community and makes friends there, so hopefully, having the attitude of wanting to do it the Cambodian way, will help me love life here in Cambodia.

One Month In

2011-09-01T17:18:00.000+07:00

I figured it would be a good idea to give you guys a good picture of what the average day is like for a Peace Corps Trainee. I had no idea that training would be so intense!

We wake up in the morning about 6:30ish, depending on the day. We get ready and say goodbye to our host family and head to the market on our bikes for breakfast. This is the only meal we don't eat with our host families.

At the market we choose what we want. We've slowly found more options, like a tuckaluck(basically a smoothie). We have also found something that resembles a doughnut, and a muffin. It's hard to find a reliable source of bread in our village, but those days we find it, it's awesome. We also found a noodle lady that is only 1,000 riel (.25 cents) and it's really good.

After breakfast we make our way to the school, we have to be there around 7:30 for langauge. We study Khmer for 4 hours. Yes, I said 4 hours. We have a practice test tomorrow morning for the test we must pass to show where our language skills are.

After langauge we head home to eat with our host families. Our yay(grandma) seriously makes really good food. The other volunteers are jealous because she makes french fries, but they're more like sweet potato fries, because their potatoes are a bit different.

After lunch we have about an hour to relax in the crazy heat before heading back out for technical training. So Hal heads to one house where he learns about CHE(Community Health Education) and what that involves, and I head to ETTT(English Teacher & Teacher Training) where I learn about what it takes to be an English teacher in Cambodia. We do this for about 4 hours.

Then we head home for hopefully another delicious meal. We try and spend time with our family without getting bitten too much by muu(mosquitos), but they like my legs so usually I head back up to the safe haven of our room after our yay's soap opera is over, and after we have finished dancing to Justin Bieber.

Funny note on Justin Bieber, I had never heard all of a Justin Bieber song in the US, and in the month that I've been here, I've heard multiple songs, and even seen some videos thanks to my host brother's sweet "new" computer, that doesn't have internet, so I'm not exactly sure how he has the videos, but they sure do love themselves some Bieber.

So although our days are long we have been having such a good time in Cambodia. Two people from our group went home this week. I'm so glad that I have been loving it here though.

Training Host Family

2011-08-21T10:37:00.000+07:00

We've been in Cambodia for almost a month now, and we've had so many cool experiences already. We have the most amazing host family here. We are really luck to have them. We live with a grandma and two grandchildren. Both boys. And often one of her granddaughters is over, she is very nice and speaks very good English.

We had a special ceremony when we met our host families and we were blessed by a monk in a wat(buddist temple) The wat in my training village is very beautiful, and it was such a cool experience.

We are so lucky to have our host family! We live in the most amazing house. From the outside you wouldn't guess that this house is in a semi small village in Cambodia.

I know, right? We have it pretty much as cushy as you can get without running water or Air conditioner.

Our yay (grandmother) is so sweet! She takes such good care of us, and she's an amazing cook. At first I did not really like Khmer food, it's really bland and often fishy. She makes really good food though. She even made us french fries! Hello! All of the other volunteers were jealous of our french fries, even if they were cold.

Our host little brothers are great. They are so much fun to play with. The other day they put on Justin Bieber. I had never heard all of a Justin Beiber in the US, and now I have heard Baby an unbelievable amount of times. I was just so excited I kept saying singer his name is Justin Beiber. Apparently he is huge even here. Him and Taylor Swift. My host sister told me my face looked like Taylor Swift. haha!

It's going to be hard to leave them an go to our permanent site!

Piglets

2011-08-20T11:46:00.008+07:00

Sorry, I don't have any pictures uploaded from our Cambodian adventures yet. It's hard to find wifi, and I didn't bring a cord for my camera. But I have a funny story to share with you.

Our very first language lesson in Cambodia was at our teacher's house. We were sitting in this super hot attic frying our brains out while trying to learn some Khmer(pronounced kuh my) All of the sudden I see them bring in a pig downstairs. I was all excited because I love animals. Like 5 minutes after the pig was brought in we heard this uncontrollable squealing for a minute and then all of the sudden is stopped. I was freaking out. I kept saying if they are killing that pig I am going to cry. Our teacher just acted like it was nothing and just wanted us to keep going.

The next lesson we heard more squealing. We went to the side of the house to look at a banana flower since we were learning that word, and I saw the owner of the house with these big knifes, rubbing them back and forth. Seriously, I booked it out of there.

We decided to ask our teacher if he was a butcher because we had heard the squealing a few times the day. He said no, he is a welder. We asked him why he has pigs. He said he raises pigs, and asked us if we saw that male pig that was brought over the other day.

Oh the differences in culture. We hear squealing and thing it's being harmed. He hears squealing and recognizes it as pigs mating. Oh yes, it was pigs procreating, not dying.

It's crazy how much we still have to learn about life here in Cambodia. We have technical training for half the day and then 4 straight hours of language training each day. life is pretty hectic here. I never thought I would get used to going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 6 each day, but I'm fairly used to it. When the entire village is pretty much dark after dinner, everyone goes to bed early. The markets are fairly empty by 10 in the morning. Life just operates at a different pace here. I feel I'm adjusting pretty well since I knew I was going to have to adjust, I think coming home to that pace of life is going to be much harder.

First Taste of Cambodia

2011-08-17T17:19:00.000+07:00

Hey guys, we've been here for a bit now so I thought I would share some scenes from our first few days in Cambodia.

It's funny the Peace Corps seems to slowly down grade the style of living that you're having. We started out at a nice hotel in San Fran for orientation, and then we flew like mad, and actually ended up skipping an entire day. We had a layover in Tokyo, so pretty much I've been to Japan... Then we had a little longer layover in Bangkok (We had one night in Bangkok!) We stayed at a super nice hotel right off of the airport. Even though we only had 2 1/2 hours of sleep there, it was still really nice and the breakfast in the morning was fantastic. The next morning we all cheered as we landed in Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh was really overwhelming at first. It was not the Cambodia we expected to see. It was crowded, dirty, smelly, and everything you expect from the capital of a third world Asian country. We quickly learned how to ride in a tuk tuk, which are little carts on motorcycles "motos" By the morning of the third day we were ready to get out of there. Both of us were really glad to get to our last hotel in the area where we're doing training. This is the Cambodia we came to be in. I think we'll really like it here!

How to stop mosquito bites from itching

2011-08-12T18:04:00.000+07:00

A few weeks ago Hal and I went on a walk and took a relaxing sit down part way through. Bad idea. We had been living with his parents for one day and had forgotten how bad the mosquitoes are. In the 20 minutes we were relaxing I got 20 mosquito bites. All on my ankles, and 12 just on one ankle. Lets just say that they itched like crazy, like that's all I could think about itching. I bought some cortizone cream, but then my ankle got real swollen, so I knew that I needed another solution. Luckily my mother in law is amazing with natural remedies, so here is my guide on how to get mosquito bites to not itch, and to go away quickly.

First off, this is the only post where you will see part of my foot, because lets face it, feet are gross.

This is my cankle, less than 24 hours after I got bit so many times.

Sick, right? So sick. SO sick.

So back to my mother in law. She has this amazing healing clay that is good for everything, but you know what else works? those mud masks that you can buy at the grocery store.

Open them and apply a generous amount to each bite.

Then wrap the area in saran wrap so that it can work overnight. The clay draws out the toxins overnight.

Then you want to put socks on over this so that it holds the saran wrap in place.

Then check this out. Look how much better my bites look.

Seriously, try this out when you get any bites. I've used it on spider bites as well and it really takes down the swelling.

Wedding Wednesday - Most Recent Picture

2011-08-11T02:45:00.000+07:00

This is our last week of Wedding Wednesday. It's pretty crazy to think that it's already been 17 weeks. It definitely doesn't seem like it's been that long.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

This week is the most recent picture of us. Actually this picture was taken about an hour ago in the Bangkok airport. It was a beautiful huge piece of art, so I thought it would be a good photo to post of our adventures.

What I love about Hal? I love that he's so good to me. He's really thoughtful and aware of my needs. He has been the best traveling companion on this trip. So far we've spent days straight together and I've been loving it. That's something that we don't get a lot of at home since we're both so busy.

I'm really glad that we decided to do the Peace Corps together. I can't imagine doing this alone. It's really special that I have the person I wnat to share this experience with by my side the entire time. I have no idea what the next two years will bring, but I'm really glad that we have chosen to dedicate ourselves to service for the next two years, since this is the foundation we want to start our family life on. I can't imagine doing this without Hal by my side, and I'm really blessed to have him in my life.

Loose Ends

2011-08-05T17:50:00.001+07:00

Hal and I had an intense last night in Utah. We were up until about 2 AM, and were up again at 5 AM to catch our flight. We had a lot to do that last day, and the last thing we did before we left was to cut some loose ends(pun intended).

In Cambodia men don't have beards. Hal loves him some beard, so the night before we left he had to get rid of his that he had been growing out for a few months.

After many steps of goatees and mustaches, he ended up like this.

Doesn't he look so much younger without a beard?

Now the big shocker is what I did...

My hair was a little big long. Actually it was really long and I loved it. But there was no way I could do that in the Cambodian heat. So I decided to donate my hair and sport a shorter look for the Cambodian heat that I would be heading into.

One thing that we forgot to take into account is that my hair is curly...so we pulled it straight to measure the donation, and then forgot to add that the top half would be curly. So I ended up donating about 12 inches, and my hair was a little shorter than I was thinking, but I really like it. It has a lot of body to it since it's short. It took me a little getting used to, but I really like it now. Many thanks to my sister who spent hours cutting my awfully thick hair. Thank you!!

I just took this picture from the balcony of the guesthouse where we are staying for the next few days in Cambodia so pardon my sweat, but it lets you see my hair.

Wedding Wednesday - Kids

2011-08-04T00:45:00.002+07:00

Only one more week of Wedding Wednesdays! This week I'm talking about kids.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

So to make this short and sweet, no we don't have any kids. We are definitely planning on having kids...one day. We aren't planning on having kids any time soon, seeing as we are in Cambodia right now. So we won't have kids at least for another two years. Both of us really like kids, but we get plenty of time with these guys to fulfill any kind of kid-wanting need that we have.

Advice on birth control? I've been on birth control from a young age to help with my hormones, so I've been on quite a few varieties of the pill. My favorite that I've been on? Loestrin 24 FE. You only have your period 4 days, so it's usually light and awesome. My least favorite that I've been on is Yazmin. Don't do any varieties of Yaz or Yazmin, they suck.

Scenes from our last days

2011-07-29T17:17:00.001+07:00

Huzzah, I finally have power to my computer to blog! Thanks to another trainee who bought a converter (p.s. it's hard to find converters in Cambodia, so don't believe them when they say you can get them here easily.

I just wanted to post a few pictures from our last few days in Utah. We had a great couple of last days and had a great goodbye party, at which I did not take a single picture, so sorry about that.

My work was so supportive of us going that they had a little cake get together on my last day. They had someone make this cake.

Yes that is Ankor Wat and the Peace Corps symbol on a cake. How cool is that? I was so impressed with the woman that made this, her cakes are yummy too!

It was weird for me to leave my job, it felt like I had been there forever. I decided to leave something behind for them to remember me, so I left this at my desk.

Aww yeah I did. Thank you pinterest for the idea.

Sorry I don't have a whole lot of pictures from our last little bit in Utah, but we spent most of our time with family doing things like this.

I'm so glad that we got all of the family time that we did, because it has only been a short while since we've been gone, but it feels like forever and I miss them!

Thank you to everyone who came to see us goodbye and a special thanks to Meagan and Charles who held our place in the security line at the airport, and without whom we wouldn't have made it to our plane with 1 minute to spare.

Wedding Wednesday - Our first place

2011-07-28T00:43:00.002+07:00

I'm almost done with the Wedding Wednesday posts. I'll be in Cambodia when the rest of these post. That's crazy, when I started this we weren't even sure that we were going to go anywhere with the Peace Corps, and right now I'm writing this while waiting for our staging/orientation to start the day before we start our life in Cambodia.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

This week is all about our first place together! We moved in together when we got married. In fact, the night we got back from our weekend away in Park City (since we went on a honeymoon a couple of weeks later) we had to set up our bed in our apartment. We didn't have a couch for like a month. It's crazy to look back on how little we had back then, and see how much we just had to get rid of. We were so blessed with so many things.

Our first apartment was in downtown Salt Lake City. We loved it. We loved living downtown. It was in a little bit of a sketchy area, but we never really felt unsafe. We had a lot of fun and made some friends when we lived downtown. Downtown Salt Lake City just has a cool vibe.

We lived there for 7 months before a better apartment practically fell in our laps. We still talk about our first apartment very fondly and sometimes still wish we were still there.

Leaving

2011-07-24T01:37:00.002+07:00

Hey guys! We are in the San Fran airport awaiting our flight to Phnom Phen! It has been a crazy few days preparing for this and going to orientation. We have received so much information, and I'm sure that it's just going to be information overload for the next nine weeks as we learn our jobs, and as we learn Khmer. The internet connection here is horrible, otherwise I would post some videos. (So youtube Speaking Khmer and Peace Corps and there is a cool video of a girl speaking it).

Make sure to comment while I'm gone so I know that you're reading it!

We have really enjoyed the people in our group so far, it's huge, we have over 60 people going with us. I'm excited that everyone seems really nice and friendly. Maybe it's that we all have the same drive that led us to this place. We're really excited though!

This was just a few hours ago when we waited forever to check our bags in the San Fran airport.

Wedding Wednesday - Best and worst parts

2011-07-20T06:29:00.000+07:00

Well, we're almost off to Cambodia, so this is my last Wedding Wednesday post that isn't scheduled. Now we're done with most of the wedding facts this week is about my thoughts on marriage.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

photo by Duston Todd

Marriage is an interesting thing. It has ups and downs pretty much every day.

Hal says the hardest part of marriage is not always having your way. I say the hardest part is that when you're grumpy or having a hard time you still have to think about that other person, and put their needs before yours. It's hard to think of other people when you're so focused on the fact that your grumpy, and it makes it really easy to take your bad mood out on your spouse. It's hard to put someone first when you're having a hard time yourself.

The easiest part of marriage? The good times. When you're getting along really well and just spend most of the day with laughing. Our marriage seems to go really well when we can get quality time together. Marriage is definitely work, but it's really nice when those moments of hard work get you to a really good place in your marriage.

If I could change anything....I don't know if this refers to in your marriage, or the wedding, but I think the only thing I would change is my cake. It turned out a bit lumpy, and I didn't get to have any of it, so it would have been nice, but it's definitely not anything that ruined my day.

Marriage is work, and it has good and bad times, but when those times are good it can be so much fun. It's nice to have them to look back on when you're having a hard time.

Also, this book forever changed my marriage for the better, so maybe if you're struggling, it will help too.

Wedding Wednesday - Honeymoon

2011-07-14T03:56:00.000+07:00

I only have a few more weeks of these wedding Wednesday posts! I'll have to do the rest as scheduled posts because I only have 9 days left here. It's coming up so quickly.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

This week is about our honeymoon. I blogged a little about our honeymoon here, and here. Hal and I went to the Dominican Republic for our honeymoon, specifically we went to Puerto Plata. We flew there with buddy passes that someone gave us. (hint: never use buddy passes to fly out of the country) Neither of us had ever used them before, so we had no idea what we were in for.

We flew from Salt Lake to New York just fine, no problems. It was all amazing. The hotel that we booked had free shuttle to and from the airport. We were planning on having just one nice in the city, but well, such is the luck of buddy passes. We actually tried to get on 3 different flights to the DR. No such luck. So after spending almost our entire day at the airport, and having Hal's bag sent to the DR without us (after they assured us it wouldn't) we got on priceline and booked another hotel for the night.

We had an awseome shuttle driver who gave us a tip to take the shuttle to the airport, and to take the little train from the airport to Jamacia Station. From there we bought tickets into the city on the Long Island Railroad. It was more expensive than taking the subway, although a lot faster. It was a little slower than taking a cab, and a whole lot less expensive. It got us into the city in like 20 minutes.

I think New York was probably the best part of our honeymoon. The two nights we had there were such a blast. I don't have a lot of pictures, because we were too busy exploring, and we forgot the camera the second night we went. Man, look how short my hair was!

We finally made it to the DR a day late. That really seemed to mess with the hotel. Because of this they weren't there to take us back to the airport, and we didn't get our dinner on the beach, for some reason they thought we were staying an extra day, and that's why things got mixed up. That's nice that they were going to give us an extra day to make up for the one we missed though. We were reunited with our luggage and were instantly welcomed by heat and a sweet band played music as you exited into customs.

Luckily Hal speaks spanish was able to find the people who were waiting to pick us up. Our all inclusive hotel wasn't as fancy as it appeared online, especially the rooms, but there were still lots of beautiful things about it.
I loved these lights they had all over. And lets face, it I loved the petals on the toilet, I just thought they were hilarious.

The DR was beautiful, when it wasn't raining, and I wasn't dying (I got really sick right when we got there). Puerto Plata is in the north of the country, and it really was beautiful.

Because it was all inclusive they had really cool shows every night. The food was actually really good, and we didn't get sick of it. They had tons of local yummy fruit too. They would always look at us strangely when we would ask for our drinks without alcohol.

I definitely would suggest going to the DR on your honeymoon, just make sure to check the weather. We went in October and the weather wasn't very good. I'd love to go back, and go to Punta Cana. I've heard it's amazing.

And of course, any excuse to show this picture, love it.

James Irvine Trail

2011-07-08T11:44:00.001+07:00

After our leisurely walk down to the ocean in my last post from the Redwoods we decided to do a much harder hike. We drove from Del Norte woods (where we camped, and I would suggest camping there. It is a lot less crowded since it's not advertised as old growth. Parts of it were clear cut a while ago, but the campsites are amazing. You aren't too close to people and the trees and plants hide you from the other campsites.) down to Prairie Creek Campground. After looking at the maps at the visitors center we decided on the James Irvine Trail, and Fern Canyon, and then head on out to the beach from there.

I'll save the Fern Canyon pictures for another post since seriously, it's so amazing that it deserves its own post.

It took us like 4 hours to do what the guide said would take 2. Not so much. It really wasn't that difficult once we started going and got used to the pace. Although what we thought would be a nice hike, ended up into about a 12 mile hike.

I learned so many cool things about Redwoods. Like how their bark doesn't really burn, so the middle will burn and the outside will still be there, and it will stay alive and other trees will grow out of it SO cool. I love that when a tree falls down over the trail they just cut out the part that went over the trail and leave it all there.

After what seemed like ages we finally made it to the beach. Yahoo! Too bad it was real cold by then, and the fog had rolled in. I was too cold to go swimming, so I designated myself the picture taker and just got my feet wet. That was enough cold for me.

We decided to head back once we knew it would get dark if we took 4 hours to get back. Luckily it only took us 2 hours to get back.

Can you see me?

Can you see Hal?
How about now?

Then Charles hugged the tumor tree that was one of my favorites.

We had so much fun hiking in the midst of the Redwoods. I wish that we had more time there, that we could have done more exploring, but after spending all day in the forest I felt petty good about actually having seen the redwoods.

If you're ever traveling through Crescent City, seriously take Highway 101. It goes through multiple state redwood parks, and you follow the redwoods for so long. Such a beautiful drive. It's prime for listening to Voyage of the Dawn Treader :)

Wedding Wednesday - Favorite and Least Favorite Moments

2011-07-07T02:21:00.000+07:00

It's Wedding Wednesday time and this week was a hard one for me!

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

Today we're talking about my least favorite and my favorite parts of the day. I'll start with my least favorite part of the day, so we can end on a happy memory.

My least favorite part of the day was finishing up getting this done:

We started too late on my hair. My dad who does not like to be late was there rushing us. It was a stressful moment when my dad came into my future in-law's house and told us we had to leave now. I was so frazzled that when we got to the temple I realized that I had forgotten Hal's wedding ring and our marriage license in my car. oops. That was a not fun moment, but it all worked out. Someone brought us the license, and the ceremony still started on time.

My very favorite moment is something most of the people reading this might not understand, so I'll do two moments. My favorite moment was sitting in the Celestial Room with Hal just talking before we went into our ceremony to be sealed together. It was so nice to have that 10 minutes to just bask in the spirit and to know that you're making the right decision and to say sweet things to your future husband. That's the advice I give to anyone being sealed in the temple. I tell them to take that time to tell their future spouse how much they mean to them. It meant a lot to me. If you want to have any idea what I'm talking about, you can go here.

My second favorite moment of the day was when we were leaving from having our pictures taken, and it was just starting to rain. I had wanted it to rain SO much on my wedding day. We were leaving with our photographer, and two of my sisters were left with us when it started to rain. So what's the one thing I wanted to do more than anything on my wedding day (besides get married) dance in the rain! We practiced our wedding dance, which if you missed I posted the video of last week Even though our photographer had to leave he stopped in his tracks and took these awesome shots of us dancing in the rain.

Photos by Duston Todd

We had so much fun dancing in the rain. By the time we changed out of our clothes it was pouring down rain and we all got soaked trying to find where they had parked my car, but I didn't complain, in fact I pulled down my slip and lent it to my sister who's white dress was fast becoming see through. I'm so lucky, I got exactly what I wanted on my wedding day, and I've heard that if it rains on your wedding day, that it's good luck!

hike in crescent city

2011-07-01T22:24:00.003+07:00

Hal and I took a little last minute trip that I haven't had time to blog about until now. On my birthday we were out with some friends and we had been talking about taking this trip forever. We realized we had less than 2 months, and if we didn't plan it now, we were never going to go. So 3 weeks later we found our selves in California to go see the Redwoods!

After what was supposed to be a 16 hour drive, and ended up taking us 22 hours. We maybe took a wrong turn because the two girls in the car were driving at 2 am and were talking to keep each other awake...and maybe missed a turn. and maybe went 1 1/2 in the wrong direction, and didn't realize it until we hit the junction for Burns or Boise, and accidentally started heading towards Boise. I got real tired once the boys were awake. Funny how that works.

When we saw the sign for Boise 100 something miles we realized something was wrong. That's when the boys woke up. Oops, a little 4 hour detour doesn't do anyone any harm...except when you're driving all night and haven't slept.What matters is that we made it!

My sister came down from Portland to play among the trees with us.

We were dying after the 22 hour drive, so we went on a mini hike in Crescent City, CA that goes from the edge of the Redwoods down to the Ocean. It was SO pretty.

Man, directions wasn't our thing on this trip. We took a wrong turn and ended up by this river and some campsites. Eventually we found the path that led to the ocean.

And this is where my sister photo bombed us. Lovely, right?

Right here, if you go around sunset, there are a ton of sea lions. Some even came really close to the shore. You would look out and just see heads popping up all over.

This is my favorite picture. I took it on the way back up as the sun was setting. I didn't even edit it, it was so pretty.

Next up, I have pictures of the actual Redwoods, and an amazing hike we did.

Wedding Wednesday - First Dance

2011-06-30T02:14:00.000+07:00

It's Wednesday again, so that means it's time for Wedding Wednesday. I love doing this posts and revisiting aspects that I love about my wedding.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

This week is all about our song and our first dance. Our song, that we danced to was You and I by Michael Buble. I love this song!

One of my favorite things about my wedding was our wedding dance. We took dance lessons! My friend Meagan's mom is a dance teacher and she competes all around the US. She's fabulous! She was the best teacher we could have asked for.

Now we weren't amazingly fabulous or anything, but we gave it our best effort. We only practiced once in my dress, about 5 minutes before the reception started.

We didn't tell hardly anyone that we were taking lessons, and only 1 person even saw our routine before the wedding. So you'll see in the beginning of the video that we tried to fake everyone out just by doing the typical dancing. During the dance I kept telling Hal what move was coming up next. He was so nervous that he kept forgetting the routine. I'm pretty proud of the fact that we only messed up once...but it was a pretty big mess up. Opps. You'll see it at towards the end of the video. In fact, from the mess up comes one of my favorite pictures from our whole wedding day.

Funny story about this, we had 3 people taping this dance. One didn't end up taping it, another had their computer crash and lost the video, and the third thought she had lost it also. It wasn't until this summer that she found it on her computer and we finally saw it.Ok, enough talking, here's my wedding dance video!

One Month To Go

2011-06-24T09:50:00.000+07:00

via littlethingsstudio

You know when you want something so bad, and you work so hard to get it, and when you finally get it, you stick your heels in the mud and think "this is happening too fast" You know? Please tell me someone else knows what I'm talking about.

Yesterday Hal and I hit the one month mark before we leave for Cambodia. Today we received our flight information. This weekend we are moving out of our apartment. Almost all of our furniture is listed for sale online. We have only packed 4 boxes.

It's so hard to someone like me who is so mentally organized to see everything such a mess. Everything in different steps of being finished and being started. I may have freaked out on Hal the other night because he had bagged up all of our non refrigerated food and everything was a mess and I wanted him to make me some rice for my leftover curry, and all he was doing was reading the news online. I hastily got up, made my own rice, did the dishes, and folded all of our clean laundry. I felt a lot better about the state of our apartment after that, but in the process I had freaked Hal out too. How can you not get overwhelmed? Is that possible?

It's hard when we were just sitting and waiting for over a year to hear something. It's been just over a month since we found out we were leaving and a month until we go. Kind of a whirlwind experience.

Don't get me wrong. I'm so excited. I really am. I'm just kind of at a point where I'm realizing all of the things I'm going to miss. It seems you just have to decide are those things worth missing? For me, they are.

Wedding Wednesday - The Cake

2011-06-23T02:41:00.001+07:00

Sorry if things get a little weird around here in the next few weeks. Today is one month until Hal and I move to Cambodia with the Peace Corps. Ahhh..

Ok, that;s a whole different post, today is Wednesday, so today is all about my wedding!

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

Today is all about my cake and food. Honestly, this is probably the most boring part of my wedding. We've only become foodies within the last year or so, so we didn't really care what we served for our wedding. Since we had so many people invited and most weddings in Utah are pretty informal we decided not to serve dinner, and just do a dessert instead. And what's one of my favorite desserts? CHEESECAKE! This is the only picture I have of our cheesecake bar that we did. We had a bunch of different toppings set out so you could decorate as you please.

And on to my cake. See, I told you this would be the not as exciting as the other posts. If I could re-do my wedding, this is the first thing I would change. I had a friend of a friend do my cake. I had seen some of his work, and it was awesome, but apparently this awesomeness did not transfer over to my cake. He decorated it awesome, it was exactly what I wanted, but...it was a little bit lumpy. But what matters the most about cake? That it tastes good! I don't remember if it tasted good. It was a white cake with raspberry filling. Hal and I only got the one bite, when we cut our cake. No one thought to save our cake or our cheesecake leftovers for us. I hope the cheesecake and the cake was delicious, I guess someone who was there will have to let me know!

No we didn't shove it in each other's faces. It was actually something that we had never talked about. But I'm glad we didn't When you've spent that much money and time on your dress, hair, and makeup, why would you want to ruin it with cake?

Wedding Wednesday - The Reception

2011-06-16T02:34:00.000+07:00

I can't believe we've made it this far. We've made it to the part about the reception. I'm going to do it kind of like how Chloe did it, because my ceremony wasn't at the same place as my reception. So I'll post pictures from where we were married, and then the reception. You call claimed there wasn't picture overload last week...well, we'll see about this week, because I'm posting even more pictures.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

Hal and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple on September 20th, 2008. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can find out more information about our religion here. Our ceremony was at 12:20 p.m. Oh it was the perfect time of day! Since you have to be to the temple an hour early we had lots of time to get ready, but we were somehow still late. In fact, I forgot both Hal's ring and our marriage license in my car. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long and my uncle came to the rescue.

Here is us coming out of the temple. The first pictures as husband and wife.

Then we were greeted by everyone and lots of hugs were given.

We had so many family and friends who came to see us get married, it made it feel so special.

Photos above by Amy Hansen

Photos below by Duston Todd

We took lots of pictures with family and then the wedding party, and then finally just us

Later that day we had our reception at the local church building. I don't have a ton of pictures on this computer from my reception, so you get to see what I've uploaded from facebook.

Photos below by Amy Hansen

As a tradition in Hal's family they make a quilt for all of the newlyweds. For us they did an advice quilt, so all of the squares stand for a piece of advice about marriage. We lucked out and people made so many squares that we got two quilts. Look at the second one, the monkey is supposed to be Hal and the calla lilly is supposed to be me. My mother in law made those and they're my favorite ones.

Funny story... In high school my two friends and I made a list of the qualities that we want to find in a husband. My friend brought mine to my reception and we read them. So funny. I don't know where that list ended up by the end of the night, otherwise I would post it!

After getting our dance on we ended the reception by running out quietly to our poka dot and Halloween themed car. But they caught up to us. P.S. if you decorate someone's car, put flameless candles in their back window. Ours stayed there the entire drive and set a great mood because it was dark and rainy outside, but we had flickering lights all throughout the car.

GoldenDoodle time

2011-06-14T09:44:00.001+07:00

Remember how I love dogs? And how both Hal and I lost our family dogs about a year apart from each other. Ever since then I've been dying for either of our families to get a puppy. I've been dying. I went a few times with my mother in law to look at puppies that she was considering getting. She came close to getting one of these puppies.

I had like 5 of them asleep on me at one time. They were so sweet, and I was bummed when they didn't end up getting one of them.

Yesterday we went and looked at a puppy. It's a goldendoodle who is 6 months old. His pictures were so adorable, so we drove an hour away to go see him. He's a big puppy to say the least.

His name was Jegar...yes, as in meister. No go. They decided to rename his Charlie. I totally think he looks like a charlie. I can't believe how big he is for his age. He doesn't recognize how big he really is, he quite literally thinks that he's a lap dog, as you can see from that last picture. He's so clumsy because he doesn't recognize that he's huge. I already love him and am so excited to have a puppy around for the next month!

Look alike picture

2011-06-10T09:02:00.006+07:00

Do you remember this post? Where I talk about how my mother in law thinks I look like Greta Garbo?

Well, guess what Hal and I bought at Ikea this weekend?

Bam! And it was on sale. Happy birthday to me!

We hung it in our in-law's house while they were out of town this last weekend. Don't worry, they offered to babysit it for us. Now my mother in law will see this awesome picture every time she uses her sewing machine.

Wedding Wednesday - accessories

2011-06-09T03:13:00.001+07:00

I'm excited about this week's Wedding Wednesday because accessories are how you make your wedding special and different. Are you ready for some picture overload?

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

I looked forever for red flats in the right color. I finally settled on these oxford inspired HushPuppies. Super comfy and perfect for standing all day long.

You want to know something awesome? My friend Monica who took me to get my dress, used to work at that store, and her boss was awesome. She was SO nice and on the dl just gave me my jewelry.

And when I went to pick up my dress, somehow my veil wasn't included in my order, so she said oh, it must have been that month that we were doing free veils or something so she just gave me my veil. Now that is good customer service, and an awesome connection. So go support the Allyses in American Fork. I loved loved loved my veil. It was super long and had beautiful beading all along the edge, was one tier and ivory. I lent it to my friend Meagan for her wedding. I believe this is my veil.

Above photos courtesy of Duston Todd

Below photos courtesy of Amy Hansen

All of the boys wore red suspenders, and the little boys wore bow ties!

And finally my bridesmaids all wore simple red dresses that we picked a pattern out for and they all made themselves.

Holy picture overload. Sorry if I picture overload you in these Wedding Wednesday posts!

Getting ready with Pinterest

2011-06-07T06:18:00.001+07:00

For my friend's wedding this last weekend I had a hard time deciding what to do with my hair and what not. So what did I go to for inspiration? Of course Pinterest!

I went to my hair board and searched through and settled on this.

via Pinterest and loveMaegan

And here is my version

via MaddieThomasPhotography

I obviously didn't get the best picture of it, and I didn't get one at all from the other side...so hopefully someone else there got a picture of it. It didn't turn out as darling as the original, but I really liked it. It stayed in all day with no problems and was great with the wind and the cold.

I also found another source of inspiration on Pinterest, for my nails.

via Pinterest

and here is how mine turned out.

In that bottom one I still had newspaper print on the sides of my fingers, haha. I took pictures for a little tutorial on how I did these nails, but I can't find them now, so I'll have to re-do it.

-You paint your nails all pretty. I just used a nude color.

-Soak some newspaper in Alcohol, I used Vodka because it said it was the best.

-Press the newspaper to your nails for 30 seconds, peel off, and voila!

-Paint over with clear nail polish and you're all set!

Birthday Weekend Extravaganza

2011-06-03T08:20:00.002+07:00

We had a pretty big weekend this Memorial Day Weekend....maybe because it was someone's birthday...uhh, THIS someone. And by this I mean, ME! But before the birthday extravaganzas started, my friend got married on Friday, and I was so lucky to be a bridesmaid. I didn't get too many pictures because I spent a good portion of the day wrapped in a blanket because dinner was outside and it was freezing. The little cottage where she had her reception was darling, and they decorated it really nice.

Her reception ended rather early, so Hal and I went to the movies and saw Water For Elephants. I had just read the book, and Hal was 2/3 of the way through it. He told me that his summer as a carnie is forever romanticized now. The movie was pretty good. They didn't have super great chemistry, and the changed some things at the end that didn't really need to be changed, but I bet you would like it if you hadn't read the book first.

On Sunday we had my family birthday party! Yay! Now Hal and I have a huge dinosaur sheet cake from Costco that it very slowly getting eaten. You want some cakes, pie or cupcakes? Come on over! I got some great stuff that I'm sure I can use in Cambodia, and I got a pair of boat shoes that I've been wanting for literally years.

My mother in law scored these amazing vintage dresses and told me I could have whatever I liked. I took home 4 amazing vintage dresses. Seriously amazing. Funny thing? I'm a size 2, and all of those dresses that I tried on from the 40s and 50s said size 13 on them and they fit me perfectly. Isn't it crazy how much the sizing has changed?

On Monday we continued the celebration by going to the Hoogle Zoo with some friends and my sister's kids. My sister's kids really like the Zoorassic animatronic dinosaurs they have at the zoo right now. They were seriously impressed/scared of the life size T-Rex they have.

Our friends that went to the zoo with us were so nice and took us out to dinner for my birthday! We went to a place called Eva. SO good. We were all really impressed with what we got. It's Mediterranian/ tapas, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was down right good. I loved the white pizza and the spinach gnocchi.

via

For my actual birthday I had to teach my ESL class. So I made the most delicious cupcakes to bring to class. I only had one student, but she was so nice and brought donuts to celebrate my birthday!

My favorite part of my birthday? When Hal came into my work to bring me these:

Thank you to everyone to who took the time to wish my a happy birthday!

Wedding Wednesday - The Dress

2011-06-02T02:29:00.000+07:00

It's Wednesday, and that means that it's time for Wedding Wednesday! Yay! I can't believe that I've already done 6 weeks of this. This week is all about the dress!

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

I bought my dress from a place in Utah that's really popular, it's called Allyse's Bridal. I looked on their website, and it looks like they don't carry my dress anymore. They specialize in modest wedding dresses. My friend who got married this weekend used to work there. She helped design one of the lines a few years back. She is the one who took me to Allyse's. I tried on a few lacy simple dresses and they were pretty, but they weren't exciting. I saw my dress on a manequin in the store, but it was in white. I asked to try it on, but they only had it in a size 0 in brilliant white. So I tried it on. I couldn't breathe very well, but I knew that I loved it. I was lucky, their Provo store had it, in my size and in ivory like I wanted. The minute I put it on, I knew it was it. I was always afraid I wouldn't have that moment of "this is the dress" and not be really sure of it, but once i put it on, I knew.

Funny story. I never had my dress altered. It fit perfectly, but I'm short, so that same friend used pins and added another pickup to raise the hem, and then she created a bussle from just pins also. It worked out perfectly. I bet you'd never know it was being held together by pins by looking at it. I've even worn it since my wedding day and they have still stayed in.

Above photo courtesy of Amy Hansen

Below photos courtesy of Duston Todd

I loved loved loved my dress. I love that it was modest so I didn't have to worry about slipping or sliding and it was comfortable. It was just what I wanted with the lace, especially the scalloped lace around the neckline, the sleeves, and the entire bottom. I love the vintage feel it has. I still have it, and have been thinking about preserving it before we leave the country. Do you guys have any advice about preserving wedding dresses?

Our Peace Corps Story Part 2

2011-05-30T07:42:00.015+07:00

So I know that I kind of left you hanging with my first post about our Peace Corps story. We had just found out that we were nominated to go to Asia. We were nominated to teach English on my part, and Hal was nominated for Water and Sanitaion. The countries that the Peace Corps goes to in it's Asian region are Thailand, Cambodia, China, Phillippines, and Indonesia.

The next step in the process is medical. We had to visit our family practice doctor, get some shots, and since I didn't really have any record of what shots I had already recieved, we were super lucky that our insurance was willing to pay for a Titers test, which tells you what you're immune to for vaccinations, so thankfully I was able to avoid getting ones I had already had. That's actually where this post about shots came from.

We also had to go to the dentist and have them fill out a ton of paperwork. They had to do this awful test where they had to poke each tooth's gum line in three places with this awful painful pokey tool. It's to test if you have receeding gums. I had to have my obgyn fill out a ton of paperwork also. It takes a while for them to complete the medical review, so you have to get it done as soon as possible. We were able to be medically and legally cleared in December. After this we waited for a really long time to hear anything.

We were finally asked to update our resumes and our file moved on to our placement officer. We didn't hear anything for a long time after that. When we finally heard we thought it was real bad. Hal got an e-mail about his construction experience. For his job he tests construction, he doesn't actually construct things. But this was his experience in lieu of a Bachelors Degree. Our placement officer said that even though in Water & Sanitation you don't often actually build anything, you have to have actual construction experience. Hal was really bummed and thought it was because of him we weren't going to go. I reminded him he has a ton of non-commercial construction experience, so we filled out an addendum form and we turned it in. At this point we were really down. We just wanted someone to take a chance on us, and not be super bureaucratic.

This was around the time of the Congress budget crisis. We had our final interview with our Placement Officer and he seemed really nice after we actually got to talk to him. He said that he could clear us for service. YAHOO! but, because of the budget crisis OH NO! he can't offer us an invitation, and had no idea when they would start inviting people again. Oh boo.

We were really bummed about this. We started making plans to perhaps go next year, or maybe not go at all. We decided to not really do anything until we got back from our vacation in California. Then we would start looking at new apartments, new jobs, and perhaps going back to school.

While in California we got an e-mail saying that our Peace Corps status was updated. We got an invitation!! But we were in California. We called our placement officer and he said we would have to wait for our package to come in the mail. So we waited. We came back from California and waited some more. We were dying to hear.

The Thursday after we got home from vacation we recieved our package. We ate dinner together and then sat down and opened it together. We both just looked at each other and said CAMBODIA! JULY!?

Wedding Wednesday - The Colors

2011-05-26T02:05:00.000+07:00

Back for another rousing rendition of Wedding Wednesday. This is pretty exciting since my friend is getting married in 2 days and I get to be in her wedding. This week is all about the colors!

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

The main colors that I used for my wedding were red and white and poka dots, but I also used ivory and black.

I knew from the start what my flowers were going to be. I have loved Calla Lilies for as long as I can remember. I had seen in a magazine a picture of a bouquet wrapped with big leaves instead of ribbon. I really didn't want the ugly ribbon in my bouquet, so I went with giant calla lillies for me and my bridesmaids, and then a rolled red rose petal, which actually doesn't really look like it sounds, at least not to me anyway.

above photos by Duston Todd

below photos by Amy Hansen

I thew in one little splash of yellow to honor my mother who was there in spirit. It turned out so great to use that bright red because even though you never know what Utah weather is going to be like in September, the weather was just perfect, everything was still so vibrant and beautiful.

Our Peace Corps Story Part 1

2011-05-23T21:42:00.000+07:00

Let me start this by saying that Hal and I have found out finally what is going to happen with the Peace Corps, whether we are going to serve, or not join at all. But, I'm not going to tell you that just yet. I want you guys to go on the journey with us. So that when I tell you the end result, you can feel how we were feeling. The application process of the Peace Corps is very difficult, and it seriously has been a roller coaster ride over the past year since we applied. So here is our Peace Corps Story.

Hal and I decided that we really wanted to do something service oriented, and we wanted to do it before we had children. We just wanted to go away and serve people, and have an adventure before starting a family . We looked at a few different organizations, but we didn't want to loose money while we served, so we looked for a service organization that would at least pay for us to live while we served. I'm sure there are more than just the Peace Corps that pay for your cost of living, but it's the one that we decided on. We were back and forth for a while, because well, Hal is still in school and it's a 27 month commitment. 27 months is a long time, but they really invest a lot in their volunteers, so of course they want to get their moneys worth.

We decided to start the application process. Their application is the most thorough thing that I have ever filled out. They ask for everything. Even everything medical. You have to write two essays, and have 3 people fill out recommendations for you. Hal and I lucked out, we finished our application a few days before the April 1st deadline, we went to submit our application, and realized oh crap, recommendations. We didn't realize they had to be filled out before you application can be submitted. You fill out their name and e-mail address, and they have to go to a website and fill out a whole lot of information about you. You need a recommendation from a boss, a friend that you've known for more than a year, and a volunteer leader. And we had like umm, 2 days for them to do this. We hopped on our phones and were so lucky that we had people who rallied for us. Seriously we had 6 people who last minute filled out all of this information for us. We were so lucky that people were so kind and willing to do all of that, and amazingly, our application was sent in on time.

Soon after we heard from our fabulous recruiter Nick Hake. In the beginning we weren't sure what to think, but he turned out being so great! We were waiting to hear about the next round of nominations that were coming up in May or June. At this point we had the craziest interview I've ever done. It seriously was hours long. I talked on the phone with Nick for I think an hour and a half, and then Hal came to my work and met up with me, and we had a 45 minute couples interview with him, and then Hal had his hour and a half interview. They asked you so many questions like "Can you think of a time where you had rules unfairly placed upon you, and how did you react" Things like that. Like you had to come up with the answers on the spot. And they're typing up everything that you're saying. Let's just say it was intense.

Now here's the problem with Hal and I. We are married. And it's a lot harder to serve in the Peace Corps if you're married. Actually, the Peace Corps is really competitive right now, so it's hard for anyone to serve. When they have an opening for a volunteer in a certain place, there is a committee that looks at what the opening is for (teaching English, health awareness, water and sanitation, HIV awareness etc) and then they look at everyone who has been nominated, and pick the most qualified candidate for that position. So in our case, we have to wait for two spots to open up in the same village, with our exact skill sets. See why it's harder for couples to serve?

The second problem for us, is that Hal doesn't have his Bachelors Degree yet. You have to have a Bachelors Degree to serve in the Peace Corps, unless you have some serious experience. Luckily, Hal has a ton of construction experience, so we were banking on that.

In June we heard back that we didn't receive a nomination for that round. The next round wasn't until September. We were bummed. At this point we didn't really like our recruiter, mainly because we felt like he didn't like us. Or really, because he didn't give us a nomination. Right after we found out we didn't get the nomination we were invited to a dinner our recruiter was hosting where lots of past volunteers, or hopefuls like ourselves get to meet, eat, and talk. I didn't want to go. I was seriously bummed. It was called a nomination party and we didn't get a nomination. But we went.(if you're in the application process and are invited to one of these, go! They are so informative and helpful. We've been to a few and loved all of them.)

And it was amazing. We heard so many cool stories. We met another potential volunteer who only had one arm. You would think that would be his medical problem of why he couldn't go when he was supposed to, but no, it was a problem with his eyes. It was nice to talk to someone else who was just waiting to hear and see if they were going to go. It was so nice to talk to people who had served in so many different places.

As we were leaving our recruiter told us that if I could pass a Spanish test, he thought he had a place for us. Oh man, right then we started liking him a lot more. Out of the 3 options I had, it seemed like taking the CLEP was my best bet. Why Spanish you may be wondering. It's because Hal is fluent in Spanish, and they don't send couples where one knows the language and the other doesn't. I blogged a few times about the CLEP, you might remember, here, here or here. After months of studying and brushing up on my Spanish I took the CLEP. I took it the day before we left to celebrate our 2 year anniversary, because I just wanted to be able to relax.

Some of you may remember, that I didn't pass. I needed a score of 50, and I received a score of 46. Yes, I know, I was so close. I felt so proud of myself that I didn't cry. I drove home, and Hal got home right as I was getting on the computer because I had an e-mail from the Peace Corps saying my account was updated. I thought I had e-mailed my score to our recruiter, but apparently I sent it to Hal on accident instead. So when he came in the house I was about to fall apart. I was logging into the computer and seriously as I was about to melt, I looked at our updated status and saw. You were nominated on September 17, 2011. WHAT?! Our amazing recruiter nominated us before he even found out the results from my test. It is so amazing to finally feel like someone was willing to take a chance on us.

We had to wait almost a week to find out where we were nominated to, because our recruiter was out of town. I remember exactly where I was when I got the call. I was standing in DownEast, at the Gateway Mall waiting for my friend to try on a shirt. Hal called me, both of us had missed the call, but he checked his voicemail first. I just screamed out ASIA in the middle of the store. Then my friend started screeching from the dressing room ASIA?

Please stick around for Part 2.

California - In Sacramento

2011-05-20T23:43:00.004+07:00

Alright, here is my last post about California!

In Sacramento we found some cool things to do. I love animals so went to the Sacramento Zoo. It was a bad day to go, because the pollen was out in full force. Hal and his brother were both dying he whole time because of their allergies.

I love zoos. Almost every time we go on vacation we go to the Zoo. I did not really like Sacramento Zoo. Mainly because it was really small, and the tickets were expensive. I did like that they had wild calla lilies growing in the zoo. The best part of the zoo? On the walk back to the car we found this amazing little "rock garden" from the street it just looks like a tiny random little garden with a small trail through it. Once you start going through it you realize it's huge, and it's amazing. There were so many plants that I had never seen before growing in there, and it's so well kept. The smells were amazing and the sights were beautiful. So, don't go to the zoo, drive like you're going to the zoo, but go to this garden instead.

After the rock garden and the zoo Beck took us for a drive around some really cool neighborhoods in Sacramento. Then he was so kind, and took us out for some yummy frozen yogurt (they had a flavor called taro which tasted like a buttered popcorn jelly belly). We ate our yummy yogurt while we walked around this beautiful rose garden. They had so many varieties of roses in so many colors. Don't ask why on a day of really bad pollen we went to two different gardens. I'm pretty sure they both were sneezing every few minutes.

After the rose garden Beck took us to Old Sac. SO cool. Seriously, it looks like it's the set of an old western movie with lots of saloons. It's right along the American river. We walked down to the river and walked over to this cool old river boat that is permanently docked on the river. It's a hotel/restaurant. How cool is that? There's a smaller one next to it that still goes up and down the river.

This is Hal's grandpa. We call him CD. Don't tell him we call him that though. It's more of a joke, although he does like to be called CD. He's getting older now, he's almost 90, we are afraid that he won't be alive by the time that we have children. He has the most amazing voice and laugh of anyone I've ever met. So I bought a recordable storybook and brought it with us. He recorded Goodnight Moon for us. It was one of my favorite when I was little. Hal asked him if he had his trusty swiss army knife on him, so he could open the thing and save the recording. After he used it, CD did something amazing. He gave Hal his swiss army knife. You know how some people are known for things? CD is known for his blue jump suits, his laugh, and always having his swiss army knife. We thought we had left it at Beck's house and he said he would mail it. We were wrong. Airport security found it in the mad mess that was our suitcase stuffed to the rafters. Oops. I thought we were going to get tased or something, but we didn't.

CDs a funny guy. He has a crush on me. I don't know what it is about old men and me. At church every week an old guy comes up and shakes my hand and says his day has been made. He told me he likes my husband's taste in women, but he questions my taste in men. Hal's grandpa has told me this exact thing before. CD likes to make flirty comments at me all of the time. In fact, the whole reason we went to California was to go to Hal's cousin's wedding. When we got there and found CD he told me I was the prettiest girl there...and we were at his granddaughter's wedding. Hehe, he's so cute.

So the wedding, the whole reason we went to California. Hal's cousin married a man who is Sikh, and she is Catholic, so they had two different wedding receptions. Hal and I weren't able to go to the Sikh ceremony, but I heard it was really cool. Hal's dad was able to be apart of the ceremony! That's what this picture is.

After the Sikh ceremony they had a Catholic ceremony by the most amazing retired Irish priest. Their ceremony and reception was at the Trentadue Winery in Gyserville, CA. We had the most amazing drive through Napa and Sonoma up into Gyserville. It was literally wineries the entire way. It was beautiful. The Trentadue Winery was also just stunning.

They served the most amazing Indian food the entire night. So good! And oh man, once they started playing Indian music, everyone was out on that dance floor. Their wedding was a lot of fun, and I was able to meet a lot of Hal's family that I had never met before.

We had so much fun in California. Next trip? Hopefully back to California to see the redwoods!

Wedding Wednesday: Engagements/Bridal Pictures

2011-05-19T09:25:00.003+07:00

Yesterday I shared some of the amazing pictures of one of my favorite photographers, Duston Todd. Today you get to see even more of his amazing work, because well, he took my engagements and my bridals. Oh man, I wish that there were two numbers for this because there are so many amazing picture that he took that I want to share with all of you. But I'll limit myself.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

First I'll start with a few engagements:

And a few of my favorite bridals:

Something amazing about Duston Todd that I forgot to mention is that he works only with film. So I have literally every picture that he took, and so he gets all of these with one shot. Going through all of these again made me fall in love with them all over again.

Utah Wedding Photographer: Duston Todd

2011-05-18T04:19:00.003+07:00

I have been meaning to do this post forever! Here is the last of my favorite Utah Wedding Photographer posts, and I definitely saved one of the best for last! Of course I have to think that he's the best, I picked him to photograph my own wedding, and I must say that he did an absolutely fabulous job! Lots of people told me that I should keep looking at photographers, and would suggest someone they knew who would do it for cheaper. But my photography was something I wasn't willing to compromise on. That's all that you have to look back on after that day and I wanted to pick a photographer that I knew would be able to capture my wedding day the way I wanted it captured. I looked at SO many photographers before I decided on the amazing Duston Todd.

I have worked with him a little bit since my wedding, if you remember, he took my picture for the Sleep Portraits he was doing.

Now I don't want to spoil too much, because tomorrow is Wedding Wednesday, and it's engagements/bridal time, so I have lots more Duston Todd pictures to show, but I wanted to showcase him before I posted those pictures, because he definitely deserves a whole post dedicated to his work. I'll just post a few favorites from my wedding day, but seriously, go visit his website, he has some amazing work posted on there. Also, how I fell in love with him, was his old blog which he has a ton of work posted on.

I really felt like he captured the feel of my wedding exactly. In this last picture, he was so nice. Our time was up with him, but it started raining, and I wanted more than anything to dance in the rain on my wedding day, so Hal and I just started practicing our wedding dance in the rain, and he stopped leaving and started taking these pictures. I'm so glad that I have pictures of us dancing in the rain.

He is starting to do more commercial work, which you can see on his new blog (which is different from the other blog link I posted). I am extremely happy I didn't let anyone talk me out of working with Duston. Both Hal and I couldn't be happier with the way our pictures turned out. I loved them so much we had an album made by Duston, which we are pretty much in love with and will show to anyone who will sit at our house long enough for us to pull it out. I couldn't give a better recommendation than Duston, so go see for yourself, go visit his website.

Day trips from Sacramento

2011-05-13T02:20:00.004+07:00

On our trip to California, we stayed in Sacramento. Hal's brother lives there. They were so accommodating, and seriously decked out their house just for our stay. It was wonderful.

While we were there, we did quite a few day trips outside of Sacramento.

On one of the days we went to see Hal's grandmother's grave. I believe it's just outside of Dixon, in their veteran's cemetery. I've never seen a veteran's cemetery before, so it was really cool to see all of the wars that the different people fought in. His grandmother was a nurse in WWII.

I only met his grandmother once before she passed away. It was only a few months before she died, and she had very advanced Alzheimers, as well as diabetes, but it was so nice that she told me she loved my name and always wished she could name one of her daughters Samantha Jane. Kind of crazy that Hal just happened to marry a Samantha Jane. It's been 3 years since she died, and it's so sweet to see how much his grandfather still misses her.

After visiting the cemetery, we headed to Fairfield to visit the Jelly Belly Factory!

It was interesting to see all of the machines they use and how they make it. And they give you Jelly Bellys as you watch the little videos about their history and how things are made. The best part? The little shop that you can go to after the tour. The Jelly Bellys are really cheap, AND you can buy a huge bag of "belly flops" for I think it was $9...but if you buy 3 bags you get 3 free...Hal and I were buying one, and his brother Beck was already buying one, so we ended 12 pounds of Jelly Bellys. Can you believe that? By the time we left California we had gone through almost 2 bags and were so sick of them! Hal and Beck would get angry every time they saw a big chunk of tutti fruity. Apparently that is the worst flavor, and apparently as belly flops, they are always stuck together.

On Sunday Hal and I took a little trip by ourselves. We drove Beck's partner's car: a mini cooper. That thing was like a space ship! We took a little trip to Muir Woods. Once we got there though, it was crazy crowded. There was no where to park anywhere near the entrance, so we skipped Muir Woods and headed for Muir Beach.

via

It seemed like it was the first really warm Sunday of the spring, and there were a lot of people out. Hal and I sat up against a log, ate our lunch that we had bought at the farmer's market that morning (Sacramento has amazing farmer's markets) and people watched. I love people watching, and this was a really good place to do just that! It was so nice to soak up the sun in sunny warm California while it was snowing here in Utah.

One more thing: check out Beck's cat, this thing is hilarious.

His name is Dexter Wheezington and he is a flat faced cat! He woke us up one morning, by coming in the room and just sniffing, because his sniffing is so loud. If you want entertainment just from looking at a cat, get yourself one of these flat faced, tiny nosed cats.

Wedding Wednesday - The ring

2011-05-12T05:49:00.000+07:00

Alright, I admit it, I haven't been the best blogger lately. Hal and I got some big news within the last week, so that's kept us pretty darn busy. But don't worry, I'll be sure to blog about it soon enough. But for today, I'll be a good blogger and post! Today is all about THE RING

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

Ok, so maybe I had some Lord of the Rings quotes pop into my head at the thought of THE RING. But this post isn't about that. This post is about my ring, well, and Hal's ring too.

I love my ring, I wouldn't trade it for any other ring. It's exactly what I wanted. I wanted a vintage style ring, with the center diamond, and then all of the little diamonds around it. I was really bummed when right before I got engaged this 1920s style ring came into style. I had wanted it for years, and now everyone has a 1920s style ring. But there's one thing that my ring has that not one other ring has. My husband had my ring made. We didn't go ring shopping together. We didn't go to a million jewelry stores so I could show him what I liked. I told him I wanted the 1920s style, and pretty much that was that.
Ever heard of the Tiffany's ring called Legacy? It's almost exactly what my ring looks like.
What's awesome about having my ring made? Well, my husband could tell them to do whatever he wanted. So he took the picture of that Tiffany's ring and changed what he didn't like. So the underneath part of my ring looks different from that Legacy ring. What's also cool? Normal stores won't make center diamonds flush with the diamonds that surround it. I love that my 1920s ring is one of the only ones that has the diamond flush, which is how they used to do it back then.

The other nice thing about having my ring made? We did it from this amazing place, I think you have to have a referral to buy a ring from there, because they do wholesale prices. We were so lucky and paid less than half of what my ring is appraised for. So...if you're in the market for a ring, and live in Utah, contact me and we can give you a referral!

I think I've counted how many diamonds are in my ring a million times, and I always forget. There are a lot of really small diamonds on my ring, so it's easy to forget. It's white gold, and I haven't taken it in to get plated since we got married, but it's stayed very silver so far! I had 2 small diamonds fall out right before we got married, but the place we got my ring was super nice and replaced them for free!

I don't have a wedding band. I've thought about it, but since my ring has diamonds underneath, I decided against it, because those are pretty and I didn't want to cover them up, and really, I like the way my ring looks without an extra band.

This was my ring tied to the calla lily before it made it's way onto my finger.

Hal's ring is a whole other story for a different post. His ring is tungsten and is brushed in the middle and has beveled edges that are shiny, and he picked it out himself. For that we did do a lot of ring shopping, since he knew what he wanted, and after looking at a million places we finally found this one.

With the amount that I wrote about Hal's ring v.s mine, you would think that my ring has more of a story than his, but just wait until I post about why Hal has two wedding rings.

What to do in San Francisco with less than 24 hours

2011-05-07T13:45:00.004+07:00

My trip to California was SO much fun. It felt like we did a crazy amount of things that we were there for like 2 weeks instead of just a few days. Northern California is so much fun! We flew into Oakland airport even though we were staying in Sacramento, but it was way cheaper to fly into Oakland, and since we had to be at the airport at like 5:30 am, the only thing that could make us feel better was spending the day in San Fransisco.

Here is my guide on what to do when you have less than 24 hours in San Fransisco.

Start out in the morning with a breakfast at Mama's.

OMG. Mama's is amazing. It was possibly the best place that we ate, on the whole trip. They make everything there in their little restaurant, including their jam. Everyone loved what they ordered, but everyone loved what Hal and I ordered the most. Hal ordered the Northern, an olemette, and I ordered the Pan Dore, a french toast with baguette and lots and lots of butter. We all loved it so much that we asked how they made it and recreated it the next morning. Delicious.

After that we walked down to the church just down the street where my father in law's sisters were married. I couldn't see most of the outside because it was under construction, but inside it was amazing. It was so beautiful. All I got was a picture of the doorway, but even that was pretty.

After the church we went to see Lombard street. I had never heard of this street before, but apparently other people had, because it was the most touristy area that we went to that day. If you don't know what it is, it's a street on a hill that is too steep to just drive down, so they had to make the road curvy. The houses along this street were super fancy!

After that we drove around looking at painted ladies..

Alamo Square was one of my favorite places! It was a beautiful big park, and on half of the park is a dog park. Yay, I love doggies, but they didn't pay attention to me, so I was bummed. Around this area of town there are so many painted lady style houses! Really, they're all over San Fran. My Father in Law brought up a good point, San Fransisco pretty much burned to the ground 100 years ago, which allowed them to rebuild the city in this way, and to have the city very victorian like this. Although they lost, I'm sure some amazing buildings, it's cool that the city has the feel that all of these houses create.

After this we went right back by Mama's, to China Town. So I would suggest to go to Alamo Square after China Town. China Town wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. I don't really know what I was expecting, but Hal won't stop making jokes about the live turtles that we saw flailing on their backs awaiting their doom. I had turtles for years, ok! It's not funny. We were in the non-touristy, market part of China Town where we didn't see a single white person. The grocery shops were cool and filled with so much fresh produce. My mother in law said we had to see the gate, the entry way into China Town. We saw a lot of China Town walking around trying to find the gate.

Suggestion: if you see a Chinese Bakery...Don't go in there. Don't do it. Chinese + Bakery = :( (anyone see that on 30 Rock?) Oh man, they had the most disgusting "moon pie" ever, and the most disgusting sugar cookie ever. The only thing that was ok was the boba tea, but yeah...not good.

We left China Town to go shopping. We only went to a few stores in a short amount of time, but it was a very successful trip, thanks to Zara, Aldo, and H&M.

By this point we were all starving again, so my brother in law who goes into the city a lot took us to a few places in the Haight Ashbury area. We chose Ploy II, a Thai restaurant. If you didn't have someone tell you about this place you would never find it. It's just a blue door sandwiched in-between shops. It's a really cool place though. It's an old flat that they have turned into a restaurant and the people who run it are adorable. But oh man, the food was delicious!! So if you're going down Haight Street, look for this:

After this we walked down to the edge of the Golden Gate Park. Which holy cow, I had no idea that it was so big! It's huge. We drove along the outskirts of it to find the house where my father in law grew up (he grew up in San Fran, how cool is that?!) The park was just beautiful.

The Haight Ashbury area is the place to people watch. There are a crazy amount of boutiques and vintage shops and really just a crazy huge amount of people. I was pretty excited because we saw 3 of the puppies that we want while walking around!

And this was the end of our less than 24 hours in San Fransisco. It was SO much fun. We were able to see and do so much. It was fun even to just drive around the city with my mouth open staring. It was so different from our last trip there. San Fransisco is one of the most beautiful cities I've been to. Seriously, go there on your vacation!

Wedding Wednesday - The Proposal

2011-05-05T03:47:00.000+07:00

Sorry I have been kind of MIA for a week. I was in California!! Yay, my trip was so lovely, I'll be sure to blog about it soon, but for now, it's Wedding Wednesday, and this week is all about the proposal

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

After much searching I finally found the video that was taken of when we got engaged. My friend thought she was taking pictures, but she was actually taking video, so they aren't the best quality, but they're still treasured to me.

So here is the story of my proposal. It's nothing exciting or outrageous, but it's sweet and it's mine. Hal's grandmother had just died and he was leaving for San Fransisco on Saturday morning. I told him he better propose to me before leaving me for a week. And he did. I got engaged on a Friday. My friend, Monica and I were helping, oddly enough, to set up a wedding. A couple was getting married, my sister and I set them up, it was her husband's cousin, and my neighbor who were getting married and my friend Monica was their wedding planner. I took that day off of work, and helped set up for the wedding. We went to get a snow cone in our runnings around, and I remember telling her that I thought Hal was going to propose to me that night, but I had no idea when he was going to do it. Funnily enough, right after that Monica got the call, to be there tonight or miss out because Hal was going to propose. I then went and bought a new dress, because I wanted to have a pretty dress, just in case he did propose.

That night I had planned a big dinner with all of my close friends. I love planning big fancy dinners with my friends, so I was really excited about this. This is why I was so confused, because I didn't know when he was going to do it, since we had the reception to go to, and then the dinner. When he met me at the reception he was going crazy. That is the most nervous I have ever seen Hal, ever, even to this day.

After the reception we went to dinner with all of our friends. I literally didn't suspect a thing. I was bummed that two of our friends had ditched out, and even more bummed later when I found out that they new I was getting engaged and still didn't come. How lame is that? Ok, back to the awesomeness of the story. We were all just chatting and playing with my friend's baby and ordered our food. Looking back on this, I can't believe I didn't suspect anything. This picture was taken literally seconds before he proposed.

Well, they brought out everyone's food except for mine. She apologized for it not being ready, but I didn't care, so I sat there patiently waiting. I really can't believe I didn't see it coming, or see it on anyone's face as the waitress brought out a giant calla lily (my favorite flower) with red and white poka dotted ribbon (which I was using as my wedding colors) tied around it, and at the very top, tied in a bow was my ring.

I'm pretty sure that my eyes were probably about to bug out of my face at this point. I was not suspecting a thing! Then Hal got down on one knee, and I literally don't remember a word that he said except for "Will You Marry Me?" Apparently it was so loud in there that he didn't even hear my response, he just saw me shaking my head. He was still shaking so bad, he couldn't untie the ribbon to get the ring off, so I had to untie it, and then give him to put on my finger. After that I had so many butterflies in my tummy that I couldn't eat any of my dinner.

So Backstory that I found out after the engagement: Hal had driven down to my friend's in law's house and left the ring in the care of my good friend who was supposed to bring it to the restaurant and talk to the waitress. Her and another good friend worked together to find the perfect ribbon and get everything ready. It's so nice that we had so many people who love us and wanted to help us start our life together.

Ok, here are the videos of that night. I don't think there is any sound on them, but they're still cute.

Easter Weekend pt 2

2011-04-29T22:15:00.004+07:00

Here is part 2 of what we did over Easter weekend. On Saturday morning we had our traditional Easter Egg Hunt for the grandkids. I love playing with my nieces and nephews, so it was fun to hide the eggs and watch them find them. Crazy enough, they all found 13 eggs except for one of them. It worked out perfectly.

And yes, those are easter eggs in my nieces hair. My sister does her hair in the most creative ways all the time. I have no idea how she comes up with them.

After the hunt I was talking to my sister who recently got chickens about how Hal wouldn't let me get a duck. She saw the same problem I did. SO I did the craziest thing I've done in a while. I bought a baby duck. I told Hal I was doing it, he just didn't believe me, so that's his own fault, right? My sister told me I could keep it at her house, with her chickens. I think she might have loved him/her as much as I do. Her boys and her husband all wanted to get another one, but they're trying out my duck to see how much they like it, to see if they want to get another one. I think it's a she, but it's a boy in my mind, so I'm thinking of calling him Fitzwilliam. He just seems so regal. So please, without further ado, let me introduce Sir. Fitzwilliam Duck.

When we fist put him in the cage, they kind of ran away from him, so we took out two of the chickens and left him in there with just one of them, and soon enough they all got along swimmingly! Last night as he was falling asleep he tucked his arm under his wing, snuggled in the wood chips and made the cutest little noises with each breath. So cute. Are you ready to throw up because this is so cute?

It you look you can see his beak tucked into the cutest little tiny wings. I just can't get over this little guy, he's SO cute. I hope he doesn't go through that "awkward" phase that chickens do when they're getting their hard feathers.

Wedding Wednesday: When I knew

2011-04-27T23:53:00.000+07:00

It's week two of the series Wedding Wednesdays! Week two is all about when you knew he was the one.

1. how it all began: how you met, first date, first kiss, how long did you date? first picture together.....etc.
2. when you knew he was the one: self explanatory.. but how and when did you know?
3. proposal: how it happened, how long were you engaged for? was it a total surprise? pictures of that... etc.
4. the ring: tell us about it! did you pick it out? did he? pictures! tell us about his ring too!
5. engagement/bridal pictures: let's see em!
6. the colors: show some of the flower and colors you used
7. the dress: was it what you always imagined? did you have it made for you? white or ivory?
8. the little accessories: you know, veil? shoes? jewelry? what did your bridesmaids wear?
9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?
10. the cake/food: i love food. so tell me about what you had at your wedding!
11. your song and/or the first song you danced to at your wedding: share a music video or lyrics if you can!
12. favorite part of the day and least favorite part of the day: can be anything.
13. honeymoon: where did you go? was it good? ;) haha...jk.
14. thoughts on marriage: what is the easiest/hardest part? if you could change anything, what would it be?
15. first place that you lived together: pics if you have them!
16. kids: do you have any yet? if not, when do you plan on it? how many do you want? any tips on good/bad birth control?
17. most recent picture of you and your significant other and what you love most about them :) and any other thoughts.

This may seem kind of funny, but almost from the very beginning I knew Hal was the one. This is weird, but the night before I met Hal I was hanging out with all of my sisters since one was leaving town the next morning, and I told her I felt like I would be getting married soon. (I was fully single at this point) How weird is that? I just kind of felt that it was coming, and low and behold, the next night I met my future husband.

It's funny, but I sent that picture that I posted in my last Wedding Wednesday post, the first picture that was taken of us, to my sister who hadn't met him and she will swear that she called her husband in when she saw it and told him that she thought we would get married.

There was a funny moment of when Hal told me that he loved me. He said "I really like you, like I love you as a friend. Yeah, like a really good friend. A really good friend. Ok, I love you." It took him 5 minutes of him telling me he loved me as a good friend and me laughing at him for him to actually come out and say it. That's his silly personality though, he says really dorky things, but they are so sweet and cute. That night he after I dropped him off at his house he told his mom that she might have a son married in 2009. Which is funny because we totally got married in 2008.

So there was never really an "HOLY COW, HE'S THE ONE" moment, it was more of a as soon as we were together I just knew it was where I needed to be, and who I needed to be with, forever. It's like that quote that I posted here before, "Someday, someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else." That's more of how it was for us. From the moment we were together, which was never an official moment itself..It's pretty much since we met, we were together and both of us just knew.

Easter Weekend pt 1

2011-04-26T10:14:00.000+07:00

Hal and I had a very eventful weekend, but not eventful in the way that Easter is usually eventful. This weekend started on Thursday with a huge wind storm. It knocked over a huge tree in my in-law's back yard. They were so lucky that it was the tree that is inside their chicken run, and is probably the furthest away from the house. As it fell just the tip of the tree brushed the house. No damage done, except to the fence in the chicken run. Hal went over there to help out on Thursday night. On Friday we went back to help out, since they had to go to Idaho for the weekend for a wedding we decided to get to work in their backyard.

I am standing at the back door in this picture, so you can see how big the tree is. And this is after a few hours with a chain saw cutting down most of the branches. So Hal continued to cut mostly as I picked up the branches and put them in the chicken run for chipping, and I started stacking the logs that Hal was making. It was seriously hard work! Can you believe that in 60 degree weather, and working in the backyard I got sunburned? Can you believe that? My part of my hair, and my face (the only two things not covered) were both sunburned by the time we went inside.

It was cool to see my man, all manly with a chain saw.

You really have to give it to him. He is seriously the hardest worker that I know. I stopped to eat and he just kept on working back there cutting that thing apart. Well, right as the sun went down we finished with the tree. It ended up like this.

That may look like just one large wood pile, but look closely, there were so many pieces, we had to make two piles. I think the back of my thighs are still sore from bending down to pick up these logs.

In the words of Hal: "Happy Earth Day, I cut down a tree."

I'll share the rest of my Easter weekend in a few days. We just had so much happen I had to split it up. I hope you all had a lovely Easter though.