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!