Memorial Day Trip to Denver

Well, the last two weeks have definitely kept Jason and I moving. Last weekend Jason and I flew to Denver to visit with the Rogers, Eliasons, and Roberts. It was so nice to see Melody and Brandon again since I haven’t seen them since our wedding, and Emily and Mordechai are definitely entertaining. We arrived Friday around noon and spent some time throwing the Frisbee with Emily and taking her to the nearby park with her bear named “Fabulous.” Melody and Brandon came in that night and we talked and played games a lot of the weekend. We went to the Butterfly pavilion on Saturday and Jason (as well as everyone else except me) had a tarantella walk across his/her hands! I was too afraid to get that close. Sunday we had a good day at church and after the kids were asleep that night we had a great FHE for Memorial Day about remembering what legacies our grandparents had left us. We listened to part of Grandpa Rasband’s funeral and then we each shared specific traits or characteristics that we had learned from our grandparents. Monday morning the girls went to IHOP for breakfast and to do a little shopping. We didn’t find anything we wanted to buy, although Kristilyn and I had fun trying on really, really high heels and trying to practice walking in them. We had a good laugh. ☺ Melody and Brandon had to leave in the afternoon and then later that night we went to Red Robin and played some mini-golf. All the little kids were having a ball trying to drag the balls into the holes . . . until this huge, loud volcano went off right next to us, complete with fire coming out the top and a lot of heat that came with it. James and Emily were scared to death and started crying hysterically. James kept saying for the next several hours, “no like volcano.” Emily actually flipped out again at the end when the last statue totem pole that eats up your golf ball and sporadically sprays water surprised both Emily and Mike and soaked them both. Other games that we played were Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, Dance, Dance Revolution, and Mariokart. We would have liked to get outside more, but it rained all weekend. Oh well, we had some good lighting and thunder storm which taught Grant and James the word for thunder.

Another hit with James and Grant was the cool slide in the basement and the two banana chairs. They loved going down the slide over and over again and also pushing their toys down the slide before them. They also loved standing up on the banana chairs and facing the back of the chair and then leaning into them to make them fall down. Then giggling, wiggling off, and running around the chair to do it again and again. It was quite the entertainment.

Desi was an amazing hostess and prepared delicious meals every day we were there. I tried to help her with the meals a couple of times, but she always managed to be just finishing with it. We also had yummy desserts almost every night. Thanks Desi and Mike!

Tuesday we drove back to Salt Lake with Kristilyn and Mark and boy do they know how to take a trip with two-year-olds. The boys did really well with the rest stops every couple of hours, a nice long lunch at the McDonald’s playland, and a couple Disney movies to watch. It was a nice little break from work and it was hard to want to go back.
Unfortunately, every vacation must have an end, and I feel like I’m been running around in circles a lot ever since. The night we drove into Denver we didn’t even make it to our apartment. Jason’s brother Steve and his wife were away last week and this week saying goodbye to family and trying to find an apartment to live in New York City for next month, so Jason and I have been staying at their house on the weekdays to help take care of Scottie. (He’s the one that came to Jason’s and my sealing. He’s 6’ 3’’ and several hundred pounds, so you can’t miss him.)

Last week Scottie participated in the Special Olympics for the 25m dash, 50m dash, and the softball throw. We watched him compete on Thursday last week and some a little time with his parents Elder and Sister Zwick of the Seventy. Scottie did really well and medaled in all three events with a gold in the 25m dash. He was very proud, and so were his parents. I think he’s been wearing his medals around his neck every day since.

Another funny moment with Scottie was Sunday night when we were sitting upstairs on the couch waiting for Jason to come home from a home teaching appointment. Scottie was in an especially good mood and when Jason came home we were all laughing with Scottie and having a good time. Well, as we were laughing we heard some creaks in the couch which only made us laugh harder as Scottie would say, “Oh no, there it goes again.” After several minutes when we all got up to go to bed we realized that all those creaks was Scottie sinking further and further to the ground, and by the end, his side of the couch was pretty much on the ground. The sad thing is that the couch is broken, but the good thing is that we were all laughing really hard when it happened.

Other than that Jason and I continue to work a lot and spend the rest of our time together. We discovered a new game this last weekend called “Dominion” that liked so much that we bought it on Saturday and have been trying to find time to play it. We’re still learning how to play it, but we really like it so far. We’ve also started playing tennis with Jason’s parents occasionally on Tuesday mornings which is fun. I haven’t played tennis much, so it’s a good thing that Jason is on my team. :)

Tandem Bikes and Zoos

Well, today is my 10 mo. anniversary. It’s hard to believe that I have already been married 10 months and I can still clearly remember the feeling of thinking I would never get married. Time goes by so fast!!! Jason has been saying lately, “It would be so different to be single right now. It’s such a different life.”

Jason wants you to know that I would have written this earlier but he has been quite the chatterbox in telling me lots of stories from his mission and from junior high. I like to go on real walks, but sometimes he just likes to go on walks down memory lane. He gets really excited about it and I think we would be in Korea right now if I could speak the language at all. ☺

Today has been a pretty mellow day. Jason has had his hands full with his church responsibilities. I think he was doing three people’s callings, and when two of them are ward clerk and executive secretary, he was really busy. So busy in fact that he missed both Sunday School and Priesthood today trying to help the Bishop out. I tried out a modified recipe of some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies today and they turned out pretty well.

Yesterday Jason and I went out on more of an official date. Jason has been noticing my excitement over the people riding tandem bikes lately, so we rented one for the day and rode out to Utah Lake from our house. It was a lot trickier that it looks. We didn’t have any gears and to use the brakes, we had to back pedal, just like my good old red banana seat bike when I was little. Anyway, I first tried sitting in the back and letting Jason steer, but I must admit it was kind of wobbly and a little unnerving to not be able to see or steer. I convinced him to let me be in front and that’s how we stayed for most of the journey. Somewhere along the way I decided our bike riding adventure was a good metaphor for our marriage; Jason provides the power and I give us direction. ☺ He thought that was really funny.

We stopped by a park on the way back and had a picnic lunch and played some Frisbee. The only hitch in our whole date was when Jason noticed his back getting wet about 15 minutes into our ride. As we rode across a river on a bridge he asked, “Are you getting wet?” I said “no” and that was when we realized that our brand new camel backpack had sprung a leak. The leak actually turned into the valve breaking off completely from the bag of water so we had to dump out the rest of the water. Neither of us had even taken a single sip. How disappointing! Before we turned it in that night, we took one last spin on the bike and got some ice cream shakes.

As both Mom and Kristilyn mentioned I went to the zoo with Grant, James and Kristilyn on Monday. It was a perfect day as far as the weather was concerned, unfortunately, everyone else thought so too and it was filled with many, many school kids, and other kids with matching shirts and tags, and possible leashes. ☺ Probably one of the funniest sights at the zoo was James and Grant pushing their own strollers most of the way through the park, especially when we went downhill at one part and James’ stroller got away from him and he chased after it until it crashed into the curb at the bottom and dumped out the precious cargo of his red jacket. He was pretty upset that it got away from him, so we pushed it back up the hill so he could push it back down again by himself.

I was also able to visit with Mom and Dad for a while I was in Salt Lake and that was a lot of fun as well.

Last Saturday Jason and I went with Keith and Kim and Kim’s family to the Oquirrah Mountain Temple Open House. It is a beautiful temple and it was neat to have our group led by Elder Kikuchi. He has such a strong testimony of the gospel and of the Savior and his love for us. That was probably one of my favorite parts.

After the open house we went back to Keith and Kim’s and played hide and seek with Talisa and Ping Pong and Guitar Hero with Keith and Kim. Keith even taught me how to put some spin on the ball, but I’ll need to practice it a lot more if I don’t want to forget.

Those have been our most exciting events in the last couple of weeks. Other than that, we mostly spend our time working, and when we’re not working we play a lot of games together. The game of the last two weeks has been “Lost Cities” which is a 2 player card game given to us by Katrina and Neal (Thanks guys!). It only takes about 15 minutes a game, but it’s not unusual for us to play 2-3 games a day if we have time. It’s really fun! I have also been doing a lot of reading and finished the second book in the Kingdom and the Crown series by Gerald Lund. It’s so nice to be able to read fiction books after reading lots and lots of non-fiction stuff for months and months.

Well, I think that covers most of the big events from us. We’re excited to see Mike and Desi and Melody and Brandon this next weekend and hope that Brandon and Jason’s brother Tim had a terrific birthday last week and that Desi will have a great one this week! We are also very grateful that Anna is doing better and that Katrina, Neal, and Anna are home from the hospital. Our thoughts and prayers have definitely focused on you the last couple of weeks.

May 4

Well, this last week I have been reading, reading, and more reading! I work for a professor and right now he’s just having me do a lot of reading to help me get familiar with the literature for Distance Education and Blended Learning. Let’s just say that several hours of reading journal articles every day is enough to make any day seem really long. I guess this is definitely another way to make the summer longer. ☺

Jason on the other hand is spending a lot of time in the coding lab. He’s a team leader now so he doesn’t do as much coding, but he keeps plenty busy. He actually did some work for his dad at a townhouse that he just bought to rent out. Apparently he painted the whole inside of the garage with a few coats of paint. I didn’t know my husband was such a good painter, but I’ll have to keep that in mind for future reference. ;)

I would say this has definitely been a week of family. We did something with someone’s family almost every day this week! Monday we had a Bham FHE at Jeff and Sally’s house. I was somewhat responsible for dinner and Jason took care of the lesson and did a great job.

Tuesday, Jason and I took Jason’ Korean friend Pap Young Hah to see Temple Square. We were able to visit Mom and Dad at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and see where they spend they’re days. Mom is right; Temple Square is gorgeous right now! The tulips were unbelievable and much more amazing than Thanksgiving Point when we saw it a couple weeks ago. (For the record, apparently the tulips all came out after we went and it’s supposed really pretty right now.) Anyway, we toured the Church Museum a little, as well as the Assembly Hall and Conference Center, and finished up watching the Joseph Smith Movie. It’s such a great film. I forget how sad it is. We would have stayed longer, but we were all starving, so we drove a little outside of Salt Lake and ate a very late lunch at a Korean Restaurant. It was very yummy, and Jason especially liked it!

Friday we had Jason’s brother Jeff and his wife Sally over to our apartment for dinner. They had still never seen our apartment and had both had birthdays recently, so we celebrated them a little late. After cleaning, rearranging furniture, and hanging up some pictures our apartment is definitely feeling a lot more “home”y. For anyone who still hasn’t seen it, you’re more than welcome to come over. We may even feed you dinner as well. ☺

Saturday was Jeff and Sally’s daughter’s 2nd birthday, so we stopped by for a princess party complete with crowns, princess games, and princess cake. Lots of fun!

Sunday we were in home for Dad’s birthday dinner with Frank and Lillis. The dinner was very yummy and we had a lot of fun talking, and playing with James, Grant, and Talisa. It’s nice to live close to a lot of family!

The only notable thing this week is that we bought a used window A/C from someone off craigslist on Wednesday. It hasn’t really been that hot so far this season, but just remembering how hot it was in our bedroom last summer was motivation enough. Since the A/C we have right now is on the opposite side of our apartment, the cold air pretty much never makes it to our bedroom, so it probably averages about 85 degrees in our bedroom day and night.