Embarrassed

During our church meeting this morning (Stake Conference) I was pondering on some of the things that the speaker was saying about Mormons in the media. Just sitting there listening...thinking... Darin was next to me with his arm on the back of my chair, his hand moving from my shoulder to being placed against the chair and visa versa (trust me, these are important details).

At one point, I felt Darin brush his fingers across my shoulder and with my left arm/hand I cross my body and start twirling his fingers, brushing my fingers swiftly around his, doing whatever it is you do when your fingers touch those of the one you love. I don't know how long I was doing it when all of a sudden I heard a soft voice next to me say in a whisper, "It's me, it's me." Suddenly I realized that I was NOT playing with Darin's fingers. I was playing with the fingers of the lady sitting two seats down from me trying to get my attention to see if she could borrow my Bible. I TURNED THIS RED.  I let her use my Bible and finished out the rest of the meeting feeling very sheepish sitting next to this middle-aged woman that I had just been flirting with.  EMBARRASSING!! 

Missing la Argentina

I've really been missing Argentina for the last week or so. Not that this emptiness and longing is new or anything, because it's not. It comes around quite often actually, but it's usually not this strong. I don't know what has been so different about this last week that has pushed me over the top in my yearning to go back and to even start thinking that the impossible could be possible this year. AKA: I was venting to Darin the other night about my good ol' Republica Argentina and how much I would love to go back and you won't believe what we did next. We actually got on the computer and started looking at plane tickets for the end of April. ha! What were we thinking? I don't know. Okay, I do know. I was hoping that we would have picked a special day to look at tickets and that they would only be $500 a piece. I was dreaming of us getting a $10,000 tax return so that I could buy tickets guilt free, OR even get a $2,000 tax return and not be going back to school in the fall so that I would again be guilt free and could click the "BUY NOW" button and have no regrets.  Nope, didn't happen. But seriously, $1,400!!???!!!  Who can afford that? Especially if you want to go with someone.

But it's okay, my day of glory will come. I should really change the title of this from "missing Argentina" to "I would LOVE to go back to Argentina, NOW."  The word "miss" makes it sound like I'm not happy with my life now, and I totally am. I LOVE my current life (I would just love it more if I were walking the streets of Posadas with mi esposo instead of sitting in Spanish classes TALKING about Argentina...).

I'm learning that I need to enjoy the NOW. I can't keep living in the past or dreaming of the future. I've gotta love the now. College.Work. Husband. Church. Blog. But that doesn't mean I can't cherish every memory :). And cherish I will. So in honor of my undying love for Argentina I will tell you some of the things that I love about this country (or at least the North, I can't vouch for how things are done in the rest of the country)...

• These are Argentine monedas:

There is a shortage of monedas in this country. Monedas are what you need in order to get on a bus because the bus drivers don't have monedas to give you back if you give them a bill. However, it is hard to keep a good stash of them on hand, or even get them in the first place. So on to why I LOVE Argentina... you go to the supermarket, you hand them your 25 pesos to buy your items and instead of getting money back as your change, they give you candy! Yes! I mean, who likes a hand full of pennies and nickels anyways? I'll take yummy chewy fruity candies any day! This is something that I DEFINITELY think should be implemented in our grocery stores (not that any of us use cash to buy our goods anyways... but I sure would if they started giving me candy instead of pennies!). 

• I miss having the scenery of these HUGE termite hills to examine while walking down the street. Not that I would wish these anywhere near my actual home, but maybe on a running trail or something. I mean look at the things! They are awesome! Amazing that little insects can do something like this!

• Fruit and vegetable stands!!!!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE these things. And they are all over the place which is great. You need an onion? You walk a block and buy one. No hassle of getting in the car, driving around for 15 minutes to get there, buy it and get back home to finish your stir-fry. So convenient! (The only negative is that they don't give you candy when they don't have monedas to give you as change :(. They just round up your purchase. Or down, perhaps).

Summary: 3 things I love about Argentina:

The suspense when you are at the cash register, "will I get monedas or candy this time?"

Massive termite hills to decorate the land.

Fruit stands!!

More to come in the near future :).

Edgar the Snowman

Is it just me or has the weather been REALLY weird this year? It snows until July and then doesn't snow until the end of January. I've never experienced not having snow so late into the year in Utah. Usually come October its time to pull the snow shovels and boots out. Not this year. It has felt like April for the last few weeks, I mean, it rained a few days ago. Rain? In January? Maybe the Mayans are right, it is the end of the world.

I have a theory that the seasons are shifting. It is so obviously occurring. Wouldn't you agree? Soon we will be living like they do in South America, on the beach having barbecues for Christmas and piling on the blankets come July. Just wait. It will happen. I promise.

On that note... Provo had it's first "real" snow this weekend. The only reason I say "real" (it really wasn't a lot of snow and is all melting now) is because we were finally able to make a snowman. It's not a "real" snow until you can build a snowman, and this snow was PERFECT snowman building snow. We couldn't pass it up. So as soon as I got home from work Saturday night, we got rolling. (And as you will see, we pretty much used up all of the snow in the yard and our poor man was covered in leaves, but it was fun).

Edgar: made of: snow, celery, applejacks, chocolate chips, broccoli, sticks and leaves.

3 Day Weekend

January is the worst time for a three day weekend. School has JUST started, thus you're not yet at the "I need a break!" point, nor do you have money to take full advantage of the weekend and go somewhere "cool" because tuition/books have just cleared the bank. I'm not saying we shouldn't get the day off. I'm all about no school days. I'm just saying that it's not the best time. March would work much better for me. With that said, we didn't do any crazy road trip to Vegas or go skiing in the mountains or anything of that nature. We stayed home, and sometimes, staying home is like paradise :).

Highlights from our weekend:

• Nothing like starting out our weekend with a container of raspberry cheesecake ice cream while watching a little late night Psych courtesy of Hulu. 

• We watched the second half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (we watched the first half on TV a few weeks ago but couldn't stay awake for the whole thing...). SUCH a good movie! I loved it and I also LOVE the fact that I found the DVD section in the library. Wishing I had found that sooner.

• A little 49er's playoff game. This was BIG  (as Darin told me MANY times). "The 49er's haven't been in a playoff game since 2002!"  BIG I tell you. BIG. Sounds like it was an intense game (I had to go to work before it was over). The best part about all of this was the fact that I had slept in the 49er's jersey and when I went to get ready for work and took it off, my dear sweet superstitious husband freaked. haha. It was classic. I told him to put it on and he did, but not without grumbling under his breathe that this had better not ruin the game. haha. It didn't.

 

• Sunday night visit with the gang. Chocolate Chip Pie. Minute to Win It. Need I say more?

• Wouldn't be a three day weekend without some play time with my 2 favorite babies. I love these little guys. They fall more in love with each other every time we get together (and I fall more in love with them also!). The romantic baby vibe is so strong.

• We even shared a lovely phone call with Anne which was a nice surprise since she and Micheal are a long distance part of "the gang". We all wish they still lived out here :(.

• Late night girl talk while sitting Indian-style in the middle of the bed snacking on bowls of cereal with who better than my sugar sugar Darin. He's gotten really good at the whole "girl talk" thing.
• Damn Yankees. The movie. I've always wanted to watch it. I saw the play once and really liked it. The movie was good too, interesting to say the least. My favorite scene was hands-down the famous, "What Lola Wants Lola Gets" song. Wow. Best seduction dance EVER. If you haven't seen it,  WATCH IT. Please. Pretty pretty pretty please, it's AWESOME, and totally PG.

And last but NOT least:

• Monday morning. Darin wanted to go running. I wanted to sleep. But Darin wanted to run. After pushing me around and bouncing the bed for a few minutes, I wouldn't budge. You'll never guess what he did next. He pulled all the blankets off of me, flipped the lights on, and as if that wasn't enough (here I am curled up in my underwear in the middle of the bed with no blankets), he pulled the fan on me!! That's right, he grabbed the fan and held it up to my body until I got out of bed. Can you say MEAN. I can. MEAN. Let's just say, it wasn't the most pleasant run we've ever had. His time will come, just you wait.

Fun, relaxing weekend. My favorite kind.

New Brakes!!!

It was time.

I'll give you ONE guess as to which ones are the new brakes and which are the old ones.  Look closely.

Unfortunately the difference isn't as obvious when I drive. After seeing them side by side I was expecting the difference to be HUGE. Oh well, I guess that's what comes with an old car. Surely it's safer this way.

Thanks to Darin, Jason and Sunshine for all the work you did to switch these babies out! I appreciate it!

The Difference Between Men and Women

It's Christmas morning, Darin is opening up the present I got him. He rips the paper off the box, opens the box and pulls out the argyle sweater that he already knew he was getting (we found it while shopping together...) and then pulls out the matching tie that I worked so hard to find for him to wear with the sweater.

He pulls it out and surely made a happy, "i-like-it" type of noise or comment or something of that nature, my memory is foggy of the exact moment. Probably because right when he pulled it out, my insecure self said: "It's probably to much of the same color huh? and won't really look good together."

That was what I SAID, while the words going through my MIND were more like this: "I think they look great together and I worked really hard to find that tie and I really really really hope you like it."

Of course Darin told me: "I really like the tie and I think it'll look great with the sweater."  
I HEARD: "I love the tie you worked so hard to find for me and I can't wait to wear it with this sweater."

But what I didn't know at that time is what Darin had HEARD while I was speaking (the first purple line), Darin heard something like this: "The tie is not meant to be worn WITH the sweater b/c there is to much of the same color. Wear them separately." 


At this point, you might not be surprised that come the following Sunday morning (New Years), there was some slight confusion (on Darin's part) and frustration (on my part) when Darin walked out in the off-white, grey and black argyle sweater that I got him, with a dark blue and black tie on. What?! "Where is the tie I got you? I knew you didn't like it!" I puffed. And that is when the truth came out...

"I thought you said I shouldn't wear them together because there was too much of the same color???"  (Poor soul. I wish I could enjoy his cute, "I'm SO confused face" more, but his confusion usually comes with my frustration so it's hard to enjoy in the moment).

Of course we talked it out and realized that we both HEARD different things and I was once more reminded that my husband cannot read minds (although he is getting much better) and I need to be more transparent.  Why I felt the need to tell him there was to much color is beyond me. I suppose I was trying to give him an easy escape to agree with just in case he really didn't like it. I'm a girl. Sometimes girls tend to do/say things that WE don't even understand. Men always get the blame for everything, and although I might take this back or deny having written it at some later point in my life, for right now, I feel for the men. They put up with a lot from us insane, think-to-much, worry-about-everything, analyze everything, emotional, read-my-mind women and deserve some credit. Men, I GIVE YOU CREDIT. We know how hard you try and we don't always make it easy on you.

Just be good like Darin and when you do something wrong (even if you don't know you did something wrong) make up for it. And big. You know, like massages, flowers, doing the dishes, cooking dinner, etc., etc., etc., etc.  Darin made it up to me easily by wearing the dear sweet contention-starting tie a few times to show his love for it (and me).

 

 

Moral of this story: Learn how to read minds.

Creepy Stalker

Who is the creepy stalker? 


Me. 


Me!


There is always the occasional facebook stalking which we are all victims of doing every now and then. But now I read blogs. Blogs of people I don't even know! But everyone does it, so who cares in the end, right? I guess I'm not that much of a stalker, at least no more than you are. But putting those things aside... This week I realized that our very own BYU quarterback RILEY NELSON is in my Latin-American Literature class!!!!  You know, Riley. Nelson. Number 13.  This one:

I started calling myself a stalker after I saw him at the end of class last Friday and couldn't help but stare. I mean, I've only ever seen him in his football get-up so I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing games on me or not, so I took a few seconds to digest what I was seeing. Stalker? Nooo. I might have occasionally flipped my head around to the NE side of the room, where he was sitting, for the next few classes as well, still trying convince myself that it was 100% him. Stalkerish? Not at all. I mean, I had to be SURE before getting excited and telling all my friends. 


So, you're right. I'm not a stalker. According to dictionary.com a stalker is:

a person who pursues game, prey, or a person stealthily.

I definitely was NOT pursuing him stealthily.  (Although, I may have walked behind him and this guy he was talking to for a good 2 minutes after class the other day. But I had my reasons. This was back when I was still trying to figure out if it was really him or not, I obviously wouldn't do it now that I know. Clearly).

A stalker can also be:

a person who harasses another person, as a former lover, afamous person, etc., in an aggressive, often threatening and illegal manner.

Nope. Not a stalker. Pheeewww. I surely haven't and don't plan to harass him, and aggressive? Come on people. I am NOT aggressive. 


And just for the record, I'm not creepy either:
 pertaining to, or characteristic of a person who is a creep;  obnoxious; weird.
So I may be a little "weird" at times, but not the creepy weird. Not cool.


Back to my story and my non-stalkerish habits....As I was not pursuing Mr. Nelson the other day as a not stalker, just semi-randomly walking behind him after class (I might have had to push through just a few people to get in hearing range), I hear him say something to his buddy about working out his schedule with a certain class and FOOTBALL.  ***Ding Ding Ding*** I knew it was him. 


And if that didn't settle the issue, today in class certainly did as our professor took role for the first time (since half the class was missing due to the long weekend). "Nelson."  "Here." Confirmation.


Riley Nelson is in my Lit class. He sat in front of me today (good thing I didn't move over to sit on the other side of class where he usually sits so that I could try and talk to him like I was thinking about doing).  Did I talk to him? Of course not.


New goal: Talk to Riley Nelson by the end of the semester. 


But what do you say to the kid?!  "Hi Riley. My husband is the biggest BYU fan you've ever seen!" ...."Hi Riley. Man, that pass in the Utah State game, wow, I mean, WOW. Talk about LUCKY." .... "Hi Riley. I used to always get mad when people chanted your name while Jake was playing and was upset when Bronco would put you in, but you've won my little football heart over." .... "Hi Riley. I don't think you should cut your hair either."   ????!!!!!?????!!!!   What's a girl to do? 


Enjoy it. I'll just enjoy being in the presence of a star, which just about makes me a star myself. I remember back in the day, going to the Orioles Fan Fair and seeing my favorite baseball players in person, Cal Ripken, Brady Anderson, Melvin Mora, Chris Richards, Mike Bordick, etc. I got to sit right next to Mike Bordick and get my picture taken with him and boy did I feel COOOOOL.  I still do.  


Now I just need to figure out how to get Tim Tebow and Juanes on my "Seen in Person Celebrity List".  May be a little more difficult... 

Bootylicious

Darin and I decided to spend our Sunday evening out and about.

We visited Erik, passed by Sunshine and Jason's, dropped in and talked to Andrea, searched for Henry's house (and talked to a few random people as we searched), flew by baby K's and then finished the night by dropping off a baby gift with Ella and Vini.

After doing all that, talking to MANY people and walking away from each house with our backside being the last thing people see while we turn our heads and yell "BYE!" or in some situations "HASTA LUEGO!" as we walk towards the car... we get home and as soon as we turn the light on, I see THIS:

(Ladies, I give you permission to take a quick peek at my husbands tushy, a quick one mind you, and only because this is HILARIOUS, or at least it was for me...).

HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHAAAAAA!!!!
I almost wet my pants like 10 times as I burst out laughing and tried to point at Darin's apple-bottom so that he could join in the laughter. For some reason he didn't find it has funny as I did... he immediately started trying to figure out when this could have happened and how many people could have seen him this way, all the while I was rolling on the floor trying not to wet myself.

But being the good man that he is, always looking for ways to brighten someone else's day, he gave me permission to share this little mishap with all of you. I hope you get as big of a kick out of this as I did, and don't worry, I already know, my man has a gggooooodddd-lookinnnnnn' booty booty booty booty. FACT.

STRESSSS

My semi-annual "Starting of the Semester Breakdown" seems to be coming to a close (Thank goodness!). It's been a rough week. It all started back on Sunday when it hit me that vacation was almost over.

Sunday night:

B: Oh no! School is about to start! Our vacation is almost over! OH NO!!!!

D: It's Sunday. We're still on vacation. This shouldn't be happening until tomorrow night or Tuesday night...Right?

Poor Darin. He is so patient during these semi-annual explosions of emotion.  This was our 4th together. He gets better at knowing how to handle them as I get worst. (Of course he LOVES starting school...???!!!!???!!!!) (We are slightly different in that sense).

It's obviously not the only time I have breakdowns, I mean, I'm a girl for goodness sake! But this is a special breakdown. Today I was pondering on my life, trying to figure out why I turn into a stress case at this time of year and I'm starting to put 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 10 and 20 together. Let me share:

1. Paying tuition

2. Paying for books

3. Paying for BYU Health Insurance that is SOOO much more expensive when married (don't worry, I understand why, but I can still think it's ridiculous).

4. Waiting for books to arrive...wishing we had ordered them earlier...praying they will arrive before I need to do my first reading assignments (they arrived yesterday!! Yay!! Prayer answered!!)

5. New teachers

6. New teaching styles

7. New classmates that I don't know. (It takes so much energy to make new friends, but I've learned that sooner is always better than later when you are taking a class together).

8. Reading the syllabi. 

I've realized that the thing that puts me OVER THE TOP is reading the darn syllabus. This is something that I just realized yesterday, and now that I've realized it, I'm hoping that future semesters won't be as bad. So what is it about the syllabus that stresses me out? This is my hypothesis, the fact that I come away from class with this in my head: 

"3 exams, research paper, turn in thesis, turn in sources, group presentation, notebook for this, notebook for that, HUNDREDS and THOUSANDS and MILLIONS of pages of reading... that for some classes we were supposed to magically know to start reading for the the first day of class. Starting class ALREADY behind = THE PITTS."

Now tell me that's not stressful! It's a lot for a girl to handle all at once.

Today was the second day, SO MUCH BETTER! We started the lectures, the class discussions, the everyday stuff that isn't as stressful as the idea of EVERYTHING I have to do for EVERY class ALL semester. I need to take these things a day at a time and try to avoid the BIG PICTURE. Thank you syllabus for stressing the heck out of me!

The stress wasn't helped at all by the sickness I must have picked up from all of the sick missionaries that I work with. I don't get sick very often, and of course when it decides to hit me, it has to do it during one of the most already stressful times of my life.

Count Your Blessings, Name Them ONE BY ONE:

1. Only have to stress about Darin's tuition (why can't grad students get grants?)

2. The more Spanish classes I take, the more I find myself with at least a few others students that I know.

3. My translation class is ALL the same students and same instructors. 

4. Amazing sweetheart who has been taking care of me (and the house) like no other.

5. DayQuil

6. NyQuil 

7. Tissues

8. Cough Drops

9. Thoughtful friends that drop off chicken noodle soup

10. MY BED!!  BEST PURCHASE EVER. 

I'll stop at 10, but even during the low of lows, one can always find some tid bits of happy (weellll, towards the end of the breakdown anyways :) ). 

Welcome Winter Semester. 

Smooth as a Baby's Bottom

*****This post is rated PG due to explicit shoulder exposure and angry facial expressions.

The highlight of our Monday evening was the farewell of our dear friend Mr. Beard. Mr. Beard has been with us since the end of finals week. It's been fun having him around. He helps Darin look and feel more like the sexy, twenty-five year old MAN that he is. He adds to Darin's already strong confidence level. Mr. Beard keeps my husband warm in the cold, he covers up those nasty little zits that we all tend to get, and he also magically makes it possible for my husband to have more time at night and in the morning. I like Mr. Beard. Mr. Beard adds greatly to the attractiveness of my Darin AND when I'm lucky, I get to take the pluckers to Mr. Beard (sorry Mr. Beard!) and pull out all of the random thick black hairs that don't belong (talk about entertainment!!).

Unfortunately, the time came (we knew it would) when we would have to say goodbye to our dear friend. Recently Mr. Beard began to irritate and made sleeping uncomfortable for Darin's face. BYU also helped make the decision easy to pick up the razor (BYU doen't like Mr. Beard).

Farewell friend, we wish you happy travels through the pipes and hope you enjoy your new home as much as you did your last.

Mr. Beard at his finest

The first few strokes

Goatee??

The focus on this man. Incredible!!

Whippin' out the big guns! I've never seen Darin do this before, because he never does! He usually settles with the little scruff that is left after using the electric razor. Not today folks! He went clean.

And now, Darin's face is as smooth as a baby's bum bum. No joke. His face is smoother than my legs have ever been, smoother than MY face, smoother than YOUR husbands face, smoother than YOUR face!!...SSMMMOOTTTHHH.
Yes, I do think Darin is pretty dang sexy with Mr. Beard present, but a new sexy has made its way into my life. One that I have never experienced before. Sorry Mr. Beard, but I think I've found a new Mr. to share my days with.

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

New Years Eve was spent in Heber with our dear friends, the Nystul family..  We had a slumber party! I know right? An adult slumber party?!  OOOHHHH yeah...you'd better believe it.

I LOVE the Nystuls, with a little favoritism toward my girl Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn was my very first friend here at BYU. Yup, the VERY first. I'll never forget the day we became friends, it was instant. We were walking... somewhere (okay, so I don't remember ALL the details)... it was freshman orientation, we were holding brown paper bag lunches and we were walking next to each other. I don't remember how we started talking, but the important thing is that we did. We began talking about our love for baseball and the rest is history.

We've obviously never been around each other for the BIG holiday's since she always goes to Cali and I go to Pennsylvania, but we both ended up being in Utah for New Years so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to party.

As we've gotten older we've become much less "party animal", so unfortunately the "party" didn't consist of any crazy dance parties in spandex and sports bras, nor was there any desire to put on workout clothes and make a comedic Richard Simmons work-out video to Lion King music, and we especially didn't feel like doing something really WILD like roll down a big hill at top speed racing each other.

So although we might be becoming slightly pathetic pre-grown-ups, we still had some fun. Started out with some good ol' Sequence (one of Darin and my new favorite games):

TEAM SELF

VS.


Team Nystul

Although Kaitlyn struggled remembering when it was her turn, they did well. I was impressed. But there was just no beating the SELF MACHINE (insert deep terminator voice).

The winning board

When we realized it was 4 minutes till midnight we had to stop the insanity and get ready for the New Year.

Kaitlyn quickly broke out the bubbly....

 Then we started the countdown...

And then we all screamed HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! And enjoyed our New Years kisses (some more than others).

We finished off the night outside watching people light up their fireworks and bang pans around while we exploded some poppers. Pay special attention to Kaitlyn's faces in these pictures Maybe even add some screaming effects on your own to make it that much more entertaining.

After the poppers all ran out (and Kaitlyn lost her voice) we went back inside and watched a couple of the performances that were going on and then everyone started talking about how tired they were (I told you we are pathetic), soooo, we went to bed.

All in all, it was a fun night. Good food, good company, good memories, good kisses.  Darin and I had an AMAZING 2011 and we don't doubt that 2012 will be just as good. 

So here's to a Happy New Year!! May all of your resolutions be fulfilled :).