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.