Due to Unpopular Demand..

Well, I was just noticing a few things:
Betty and I rarely post anything.
Few people look at mine.
Every other married couple has 1 blog.
I want to be more unified with my wife.
My blog is the reading level difficulty of Elementary School. (you can tell; that sentence was poorly constructed)

Conclusion: Deletion of this blog, unification to Betty's.
We will just post things together on hers and maybe together it will be more frequently updated and exciting. Plus half of the posts are the same, might as well save you the reading time.

So I will finish with one last story that made this weekend wonderful!

The marathon was great. We had a really good time. We did about how we had hoped, and ended up a lot more sore than we expected.
Luckily free massages were being offered by a Salt Lake massage school. We got in line, and Betty had to run to the bathroom. She handed me the contents of her hands and i saved her place for a minute or two. When she returned, we were called up to different beds.
My nice massage therapist, mother of two asked me to lay on my stomach.
After a few minutes massaging, she asked me to roll over.
This was my first massage and I have always been worried about the horror stories of "rolling over". In addition, we all know the famous phrase, "is that a banana in your pocket? or are you happy to see me?"
Well, those mysterious contents of Betty's hands, included a banana. So upon rolling over, she began massaging my upper left leg, and reached a certain point, in which she hit something a bit solid... hahaha...
she immediately moved her hands and never returned. At that moment I reached in my pocket and pulled it out, mentioning "oh.. i have a banana in my pocket!" hahaha so awkward.
Because of the extreme wind, she didn't hear me, and not until after the massage did she notice there was a banana on the table.
She then asked "where did that come from?" I informed her "my pocket" and she patted me on the back and wished me a great day!

I met back up with everyone else who was shaking their head because of how long my massage lasted! They were all jealous, and they soon found out why!

Credit goes to High school..

75 words

Speedtest

Weston Arntsen and I used to always race in high school on Instant Messenger.. we got pretty good... and I think it's kind of cool but pathetic that I spent that much time on the computer.
I took a typing class that was supposed to teach me technique and to type.. it was ok, but those late nights until 3 in the morning over the summer talking to friends was the real ticket.


The marathon was my original goal, but the ball of my right foot started acting up about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Lots of pain and it was really tight. I talked to my brother Brandon who is in med. school and he told me to take it easy. His reasoning was very logical.. I kind of wanted to push myself just to say "I ran a marathon." But considering I'm only 23, I have a lot of time to do that. So this Saturday will be a half marathon with Betty and Marisa, my sister... I'm really excited and already have the pre-race gitters.

I ran cross country for 4 years in high school, went to State as an alternate my Junior year and ran varsity my Junior and Senior year.. so I have put a few miles on my legs. But I've been getting really sore during my training. Lots of tightness in the calves, and my upper back is being really weird.. it gets a sharp pain often. But I think I'll be ok.. I'm really excited for it.

I ran the Rex Lee Run a couple weeks ago. I did the 10K and got 17th out of 480 runners or so..
Training before that race was normally at a 7:30 minute pace at the fastest... I didn't have a watch so I had no idea how fast I was going... ended up running it in 39:53 at a 6:26 pace!
The heat of the moment got me going... We'll see what happens on Saturday, I just have to be more careful, cause a 10k is about half of my race this week.

http://rexleerun.byu.edu/results/2008_overall_10k.html (proof can be found here if you don't believe me)

I have finished 4 of my 7 finals! So just a few left, the more difficult ones of course, but considering finals start tomorrow I'm pretty lucky. They have all been very spread out.
I have this week pretty easy, but poor Betty has to cram in all of her projects and spends long hours in the depressing and dark basement of the HFAC. It will be over soon.

Almost a month!

Apologies to the 3 people that read this blog.. or check it frequently. I get on Betty's case about no updating, then I'm found guilty, it's been almost a month, but I think I'm kind of excused because of school.
It's my priority right now. Luckily Carrabba's is out of the picture.. after a year and a half I finally called it quits.. I've been anxious to do so because of the stressful nature/ bad atmosphere. But my mom asked me on my last day if I was sad at all, I told her no, but later in that day as I was leaving and saying bye to a ton of friends, that I kind of will miss that part of it.
But Betty and I are excited to move on. We are excited to get some space from Utah for a few months and try something new. Besides the money situation, we think it will be really nice for our relationship. We're going to be with a couple young couples and away from both sets of parents, new jobs, new place, no school... so it will be awesome. I haven't heard anything negative about North Carolina.. just a lot of people saying it's supposedly a really nice place with really friendly people. It will be awesome to be in some southern hospitality again.

This is where we are most likely going to be staying... http://www.liveatblakeney.com/lifestyle/

Betty wants to get a part time job at either Banana Republic, Pottery Barn or Anthropologie... I say I'd rather see a little bit of your pay checks. She claims it's just to get good ideas... but when she gets there everything will be "so cute... I couldn't resist".

Finals are coming up really soon... we are getting really close, in fact our last day of class is a week from tomorrow. A week from Saturday is our race, and the week after that we hit the road after Colby and Ginny's wedding (they are the one's in charge out in NC). We hope to stop in Colorado to see David (Betty's brother) on his mission for a little bit. But we have to be there by Tuesday, so we'll see how much time we have. I have no idea how Colby and Ginny are going to make it out there getting married 3 days before!

It's a 30 hour trip: http://www.mapquest.com/mq/4-LFk*

We have a lot to do before we leave...
-get Betty's windows tinted/ car ready to go
-pack up our stuff/ put it in storage
-get the new girl that's house sitting figured out
-get good grades in school
-get a bike rack for Betty's car
-see family and friends

any thing else we should do? i feel like i'm asking my mom to do a check list before a camping trip or something... how come i'm such a nerd?
Anyone heard anything about Charlotte?

This weeks date..

Last Thursday Betty swore was the night of this ward party.. I thought it was something different, but we got dressed up and showed up to the church to find just a bunch of men doing 'secretive preparations' for the following night. No big deal at all because we were in a hurry to get to the baptism of my old roommate John. It was a really cool experience. Pretty weird to have a baptismal font in one of my old classrooms on campus.
So the following night, Friday, Betty and I showed up to the church trying to be fashionably late by 25 minutes, but just found ourselves basically alone waiting another 40 minutes for the thing to actually start. We ended up having a BLAST!
Things can be a tad awkward since I don't speak Spanish very well. I can understand when they talk about church stuff or very slowly. So trying to keep up I had to have Betty translate a bit for me. The guy in charge really thought this was going to be such a surprise for the women, even though Betty had guessed everything before it happened.
They hired a DJ first off, with a sweet set up on stage, flashing stop light, disco lights, he had those sweet clear sunglasses (the should have shaded lenses, but they're just clear). They also had a photographer with a beautiful backdrop for a photo shoot (excellent pose will be shown when printed) and he also did film. So it started with us walking through this archway that was lit up by Christmas lights as the guy filmed us... no one knew what for.. we all just had to do something stupid, so I picked up Betty, carried her through and everyone loved it.
Then the men served food to the women that all the men had prepared... pretty nasty rice, chicken, a KFC bucket, Halloween cookies and Betty's and my favorite, someone brought sunflower seeds. Still in the shell and just sitting in the middle of the table. haha... it was so funny. A potluck, and someone brings sunflower seeds!
After that we went in to the bishops office and got what we had prepared the night before, beautiful wrapping paper held a rose for each lady, tied up with ribbon and some incredible personalized cards.
Then we played this game where everyone had to pop a balloon on a chair... Betty and I could not stop laughing, all these crazy latino's in their 50-60's waddling around the cultural hall trying to pop balloons.. probably a had to be there moment.
Finally, things got really crazy... the music began and the dance floor filled, the chairs emptied and dancing commenced. That's something I love about the culture, they will dance the entire night, but Americans will take about 45 minutes before anyone dances, get weirded out that people are watching, and then sit down and the party ends. The second the music started the floor was full and no one stopped for about an hour, then it was on and off.
All in all, we had such a good time. The activity was pretty cheesy, but we couldn't stop talking about how fun it was. Everyone there was so welcoming and warm. They made us really comfortable and we left asking ourselves if we should just transfer ourselves to that ward?
The bishop and his wife were the best dancers, getting really latino'ly sexy, some crazy lady was eating Betty up dancing with her, etc. We will be at the next ward party.. no question about it.


This is what I'm going to look like after some salsa classes.

I apologize that no pictures are up of anything real yet.. I have to improvise with google search... but I'm going to do one big blog of all of the pictures I've promised to put up..
I'll get on that this week. Betty will be gone= I'll be bored= I will get it done.

The Sweet Life...

http://www.ladolcevitaprovo.com/

I apologize for the nasty comments, but that's what I needed to say.
Our dates are continuing in search for great restaurants. Last Friday Betty and I were in the mood for some Italian (eye-tal-ee-in) food. I had been running errands in Provo (getting our license plates "TEX MEX".. I'll show them later) and drove by a place I've wanted to try called "La Dolce Vita". If you haven't seen the movie with Roberto Benigni, I highly recommend it. Sure it's quite sad, but it is an extremely well done movie... one of my favorites. So we hit it up around 7 that night. Waited about 5 minutes before they sat us.

Looking at the menu I was very interested. The choices were difficult because of the simplicity of each dish. There was a wide variety and it all sounded very good.
We ended up starting with what is called "Focaccia" which comes from Genova, my first area on my mission. A really simple bread with tomato, basil, garlic. I was quite impressed.

Betty ordered a plate of linguini alla marinara with shrimp, and it was fantastic. In fact it was even better heated up the next day for leftovers.

I got a pasta combo, some rigatoni and something with a white sauce. It was pretty good.
As the dessert tray was brought around we were un-impressed and surprised that tres leches was one of the options. Everything else was quite authentic, and they threw in a couple random desserts. I think if you're gonna go Italian, go all the way! They did have tiramisu, but that didn't make up for the other 5 random choices.

It ended up being an expensive bill, and our server who had a great accent pronouncing the items did a very poor job serving. We left a little bit upset about the experience and felt that we paid too much for what we got.

We aren't too thrilled about returning, but I did drive by the other day and saw that they have some really cheap lunch specials for about 6 or 7 bucks. Maybe that's the time to go?!

not fair poop...

Do I have some weird obsession with bowel movements? How come two blogs in a row talk about this? How come I could completely stop writing about this now, but I'm still going on?...
Last night I was with Betty at her parents house and somehow it came up, her dad was saying the difference between American bathrooms and Mexican bathrooms...
In Mexico, all the guys will wait until no one is in the bathroom before pooping, they will strain and suffer holding it until they are the only ones to hear such noises. I couldn't tell you if it's true, but I can confirm the opposite...
Americans are all about making as much music as possible. I remember in middle school everyone used to be scared to go, it was the embarassing thing to do. But then as you reach high school, you start to realize that everyone does it (peer pressure worked on me) and it's totally natural and normal. I still must admit though that sometimes I get a bit nervous about it and don't like people hearing me.
Betty's brother Asael (on a mission now) used to NEVER be able to go anywhere besides home. He would hold it all day at school and come running in afterwards and let it go... but even then, he had to line the seat with t.p. At home? That's sad, he had nowhere he could spread and relax.
Something I don't find fair, is that girls can completely disguise it. You walk in to the bathroom, and they're all sitting. Who's pooping? Who's peeing? No one can tell. It's just not fair.
The only way I can feel comfortable is if there's lots of people in there.. then I can squeeze in everything during all of the noise making: door opening, flushing, water running, paper towels turning, etc. Those are the times to let it go/ disguise what mysterious thing I may be doing in the stall. I'm proud of those who can fly freely without any shame..
One day I will make it there.. with time.

Dieting...for tiny people?

The juice diet went well.. as you will see in Betty's blog, over our 3 day trip to Moab we each gained 4 pounds... nothing for either of us.. we both need it, but we felt pretty nasty. Also, being in marathon training, we have wanted to get on to a good diet schedule and take care of ourselves to the maximum. So we've been planning on doing a juice diet to detox/ flush out the bod. What a better time to start then now.. so we got back and called it quits on solid foods for 3 days.

A couple months ago a friend and I did a lemon-detox diet (later found out it's not very good for you, should've known on my own) in which you drink a combination of lemon juice, water, cayenne pepper and pure maple syrup. Each has it's own function in the detox. The main flushing power comes from the stomach relaxing herbal tea to drink every night, and upon rising the 1 liter of warm sea salt water. That was a challenge to wake up in my cold apartment, and think of downing that, just so about 30 minutes later it would come rushing out of me!
Basically the tea loosens up everything, and then in the morning the sea salt water is the same consistency of your insides so it just runs right through..
I never had anything look like that luckily..
I'll tell you this... it works.. it cleans you out, and I felt pretty good, but since then I have struggled to have regular movements (if you know what I mean). And even with this juice diet, 100% natrual juice, water and fresh fruits only, for 3 days.. I didn't move much down there.
I know it should have worked because Betty definitely had success (again, if you know what I mean). I hope I haven't ruined myself, but I was atleast really hydrated and got lots of vitamins and didn't eat anything nasty.



Yesterday was my first day at work on the diet and I swear to you everything never looked so good. Chicken fingers, salmon, chicken Bryan (goat cheese, lemon butter with sundried tomatoes on a chicken breast), also a big group called in to reserve for 25 people and ordered about 15 appetizers that they wanted on the tables when the walked in, but never showed up, so they were for the 8 servers working!... it was tempting, but I didn't want to ruin everything I had just done for 3 days.

This is what we ended up eating to get back into it... This is Betty's and my favorite food. It's called a tomato caprese (cu-pray-zay) salad... just roma tomatoes, fresh milk mozzarella cheese (go to costco it's the cheapest there) basil, salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar. It's very Italian, very light and very fresh. So good.

We're back on regular food now, just taking it easy to not load up too fast on a bunch of junk.

Dinner #2

We found ourselves in Springville at the Walmart and I had heard about a place called the "Art City Trolley" and often drove by and saw the old trolley cart out front. Earlier that day I asked my sister Marisa where we should go... she said that "the best places are always a hole in the wall." This trolley looks pretty rugged and beat up... not that cool vintage look, it just looks worn down... so we chose to eat there.
You have to pull around to the back for the parking and we noticed a bunch of really nice cars and nowhere to park. My mind slowly changed... walked in and completely changed... really cool place with an awesome atmosphere. We waited about 5 minutes until a table opened up and we enjoyed good old American cooking. Well... we started with chips and dip (HUGE) and then each got excellent homemade hamburgers.

This isn't good.. Betty and I are on a juice diet and we're really hungry. I don't want anymore carrot juice!

Betty being from Mexico of course wants everything very spicy, so she ordered hers "flamin' hot". It's funny when heat can actually get to her. Too often "it's not spicy enough"... but this was plenty. I've only seen her mom not able to handle spice one time, she took a huge bite out of a pepper and we had to supply her with relief bread and drinks for a few minutes. Betty struggled to eat their spicy... so if you have the choice, go regular.
The atmosphere was really laid back, good service, great prices, and pretty good food. We enjoyed it and will be back some time. I'm possibly thinking to serve there after the summer?! It seems like a "pre-mission" restaurant, everyone was in high school I think.

Sorry it's late...

Round two of the date night was extremely fun. We were planning to send out some valentines cards, so we went to Walmart one night and I got a turtleneck, Betty a sweater (too small of course) and some shirt paint bottles. We brought them home and painted adorable designs of valentines/ hearts, etc. Then a few days later returned for a photo-shoot.
Betty could go on for hours about the photo-shoot. I remember when we were dating I asked her if she would ever go to a car dealership with me and pretend that we were married and test drive cars, etc. She told me she would never be able to keep a straight face, but proved herself completely wrong during our excellent photographing session.
The lady was crazy... she was taking her job way too seriously. We signed up for just this promotional package that costs $12.00 and you get about 35 pictures of all different sizes.. but she was set on us getting a bunch more. So we took 10 poses, mimicking those displayed on the wall (ex: staring off into the distance together, Betty laying down with her hair everywhere, other sexy poses). It took her about an hour to take 10 pictures cause she couldn't get anything "perfect".
The whole time Betty is saying "Oh yeah... this is gonna be a great shot!" and photo lady was eating it up the entire time. I had the hardest time not laughing...
Her husband, who works at Walmart as well as he began his lunch break came into the studio and would not stop staring at me with the most evil straight face. All he was thinking was "Who is this kid and what is he wearing?" He didn't say anything except "Hunny, hurry up, he's holding her." (We had just gotten the grand idea for a piggy back shot!)

What is she grabbing?

The pictures will be up soon, you should receive yours in the mail if you send us your address. I'll also put up the picture that I took with my buddies freshman year that inspired the outing.

The beginning....

Betty and I have a weekly date night. Thanks to my lighter work schedule, we have been able to go out on weekend nights. I love going out to eat and trying new places, and I decided to start writing a weekly journal of different restaurants that we choose along with a report/ recommendations, etc.

#1- Diego's Taco Shop- recently relocated in Provo across the street is now serving Taco lovers at 300 North and something really small West.

Including the name "Taco" in the title... Betty and I both went for the taco's. They offer a wide wide variety of taco's with different meats and styles... I chose the two fish tacos and Betty the carne-asada, al-pastor and carnitas. With no idea where to order, we stood until an extremely friendly man Diego, the owner, greeted us and we ordered. The restaurant had just emptied out when we arrived, but a large group of college students had exited happily into the freezing temperatures. We waited about five minutes as Diego talked with us about how we met, etc. and afterwards brought us our overflowing styrofoam plates. Every bite was delicious and packed with authenticity. Betty may have had reflections of the streets of Mexico as she enjoyed every crumb on the plate.


We will happily return for a second round. We spent a total of $15 including a generous tip and walked away excited to go back. It was a great experience and we recommend it to all who find themselves anywhere in Provo. It's simple, it's cheap and it's excellent!

link to your backyard...

I am a bit excited to maybe have part in this new backyard blog... which i encourage all to invite. I am currently in two soil science classes (possibly one of the nerdiest things I have ever said in my life). But we are learning about soils and their compositions, etc. I am also taking an interior landscaping class which has so far been one of my favorite classes of all time. It's fascinating seeing all of the different types of plants that are on the earth. We are studying the effects they have on people's lives in the home and in offices, etc. It is incredible what they do. For example, a testing center at a university did a study once where they split their room into 2 sections and randomly sent students to either side of the wall. On one side, the room had no changes and student performance had no change. On the new side of the wall, plants were placed randomly and they noticed an average higher test score, lower stress levels,and a faster test-taking pace. Other contributions of plants is it reduces sicknesses. Work places spend tons of money trying to filter their air, but a room of about 1500 square feet, if it has just a few small indoor plants, that will do the trick, plus the other aesthetic benefits.Not to sound really fem. like my family already suggests I am, but it's very relaxing and look at all of the options you have. We get to work in the campus greenhouse this semester. Also we will be taking some of the plants home to see if we can keep them alive and well. This class is getting me pretty interested in maybe doing work in this area. My plan is to do landscape architecture and design residential and commercial landscaping, but this is a lot of fun as well. I'm slowly converting Betty to some of my ways. She has let me bring in a couple of plants already in our house, but by the time I'm done with graduate school we are going to be living in a jungle!
I have to have plants.. what can i say? I grew up in Kingwood "the livable forest" with a mom who kept tons of plants in the back yard and an older brother who has at least 30 hanging plants at his house.

APOLOGIZES

I hate not having the internet at home. It makes keeping in touch with people much more difficult. I promise that when we get the internet (can't promise when) I will be better.

Getting back to school has been good for me. Last semester Betty and I took it way too easily since we were getting married. Now I'm back at it full force. It's good for me to have a demanding schedule to remind me what real life is like!

It's also good to see the financial difficulties of real life. Last semester I was free to work all the time and made a lot of money. Now time being limited, I have to balance everything yet still keep up with necessities.

Betty luckily has her new computer and has started working with Renovations in Salt Lake. She will be paid soon I hope and we can get ahead for the next month or two. I'm still at Carrabba's but getting ready to leave. It's a great job, perfect schedule (what i want i get),
good friends, good money, good food/ discounts. But it's bringing out a bad
side of me. As soon as I walk in there i say to myself "alright.. what is some customer going to do to piss me off today". And because of that, plus everyone else complaining about picky customers/ crappy tips/ etc, i am stressed and dread going back in. I've learned to whine and complain at that job.

I must admit, I have been very blessed with the job.
Also, I am majoring in landscape management and
am proud to work at a place with plants all over the roof.