A St. George Weekend!

My dad got my sister Alex, Jake, and I tickets to Aida at the Tuacahn Theater. So we decided to make a day of it! First we decided to climb was we thought was a small cinder cone. It was NOT small!

It took ALL my strength to get to the topbut when I made it I was SO excited!After we climbed down we decided to drive to Mesquite, Nevada so that my dad could have his favorite ribs. Jake really enjoyed the murals on the outside of the restaurant.Nevada was really hot. Well, so was Utah, but we only documented it in Nevada. Alex was really excited to get back to Utah after dinner.We still had some time to burn before the show so we decided to walk around the grounds of the Saint George Temple.

Jake and I took some kissy pictures, but I decided to spare you all. You're welcome! :)

After that we went and watched Aida which was FABULOUS!!!! There was a live camel! And the costume changes blew my mind! So that was pretty much the best weekend ever!!

The End

We are finally home, and we are SO glad! In fact, we got so antsy to get home that we left on Wednesday rather than Friday, drove to Cleveland the first night where we crashed at my aunt's house, and then drove all day Thursday and through the night so we got here on Friday morning (6am to be exact!). Yesterday was fun, but I was pretty much walking dead because I was so tired! Last night I think I slept about 12 hours without a problem, so now I feel rested and refreshed and ready to take over Orem!

Near The End

As our time here in Boston winds down, I have been contemplating those things that I will really miss about living here and those things that I will be excited to leave. So here is a taste of that list:

Things that I WILL miss:

• living next to the beach and going for a swim in the ocean nearly every sunny day. Not that it has been very sunny, but oh well.
• my sunbeams.
• having a whole house to myself, even if it is an old house.
• having space for a garden. Not that I ever did anything with it, but at least it gave Jake a hobby.
• living in the "mission field". Where else are you going to sit down for church and have the guy in the pew in front of you drinking his Dunkin' Donuts coffee?
• The families that I have gotten really close to - both from church and just babysitting in general.
• having the missionaries over for dinner. You never get to do that in Utah.
• the babysitting money. People out here pay big bucks for childcare! Jake and I sat for a family with 3 kids for 5 hours (the kids were asleep after 1 hour of us being there) and came home with $80!! The families I sit for here think nothing of plunking down $60 for just a few hours of babysitting their ridiculously easy children!
• our Brazilian friend Vania. She's been so good to us and really got me craving her yummy Brazilian food!
• $5 Tuesdays at the movie theaters. All shows are $5 all day Tuesday.

Things that I WON'T miss:

• humidity. I hate it. It saps me of all energy. I can never wear my hair down. Heat I can handle, but not humidity. We are mortal enemies.
• rain. This has been a SUPER rainy summer (it is raining as I type this).
• the bed. It is an old antique, but in my mind, antique=uncomfortable. And it doesn't help that I have the most comfortable bed waiting for me in Orem.
• no dishwasher. After our first apartment I swore that I wouldn't live without a dishwasher again. So much for that. And since Jake is constantly busy, it's my job to always wash the dishes. I'm so done with it!
• the price of groceries. Who knew that Utah had such cheap groceries! Milk here is close to $3.70 a gallon! And that's for the generic brand! And they don't have Mexican food here.
• the distance it takes to drive places. I have finally made the switch where if something is within a 30 minute drive, it is considered close.
• no garbage removal system. We have to drive to the dump to dump our garbage. And we are actively recycling for the first time ever, which isn't bad, but just smelly.
• not being near family. I have missed my siblings and all of my nieces and nephews like crazy! I seriously called my sister Alex twice a day every day since I've been here. Hearing familiar voices from home was so comforting!
• being back in "Mormon country"! We are the only Mormons in our whole town.

So there you have it. And for those who are curious, Jake and I will be back in Utah on Monday, August 24th! Can't wait to see you, but also very hesitant to leave.

4 Things

1. I went to walk the Freedom Trail last week with my friend Kristin and found some of my ancestors: 2. I finally had my piano tuned. It's the piano I stand to inherit (it follows the Martha name) and hasn't been tuned in forever! Luckily, the lady who tuned it also restores old pianos and said my piano is in Fabulous condition! Hooray! It was fun to see it all dismantled around my living room!3. Hana left on her mission today to the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission. See you in 18 months! (haha - everyone knows we'll try to *bump* into her on temple square!)4. It's my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom! My gift will be not telling everyone that you are 51. Oops... ;) (seriously - I think she could pass for someone in their 40's!)

Pioneer Day Celebration

Jake and I have been teaching in the Primary while we are out here in Boston so we got to go to the Primary activity day celebrating the pioneers! Actually, Jake had too much homework, so I went as the representative for the family! :) They had asked each kid to dress up as a pioneer and to decorate their bikes/wagons/scooters for a parade. Well, I learned pretty quickly that this isn't like Utah, where most families have stashes of pioneer clothing on hand and can outfit a whole handcart family in just a couple of hours. Here, they had to be a bit more creative, and I liked it almost more!

Yup! She was definitely using a fertilizer spreader as her handcart!

This is the primary president introducing "Brigham Young" who was going to lead everyone in their trek (aka a parade around the parking lot). Everyone was having a blast:

Then we did such fun things as having a watermelon eating contest, candle dipping, penny throwing, story telling, hopscotch, and stick pulling (which usually turned into stick fighting):

All in all, it was a day of silliness and fun! And I got to hang out with my two best friends here, Abi and Jordan! Aren't they the cutest!?!

My Magic Wand

Harry Potter ain't got nothing on me!

My face is really sensitive. Any time I put anything on it (face wash, masks, sunscreen, makeup, lotion) I always break out. So this is my new secret weapon! I found it in the medicine cabinet after my sister moved out (thanks Hana!) and decided to use it. You just dab it on your zits - one side for day and one side for night - and it is supposed to take care of them. Well, guess what. It works! I decided to have a spa night and do a face mask. Fun, but I also started to break out a few minutes after it was off. So I decided to dab on some of the night goop, and when I woke up in the morning, there was nothing there! My zits were completely gone! This is an amazing product!

*Boots has a partnership with Target and CVS so you can look there to see if they cary this product*

The Good And The Bad

The Bad: Jake sprained his ankle. He can still get around okay, but it looks really bad!

The Good: I went for a long swim in the ocean today! It was 85 degrees outside and sunny and just about perfect!

Zipping!!

So we decided to have some fun this past weekend and really do something that would challenge ourselves. What better to accomplish that then to go on a 3-hour zip line tour of western Massachusetts!?! We had so much fun and Jake was totally fearless! I, on the other hand, almost chickened out on the first zip. We were really high up and I was not sure about trusting my life to some ropes and pulleys. But after I took the first plunge, each additional one got easier. I also perfected the art of braking just enough so that I sailed onto the next platform with grace and ease. We had a really great time and I learned to give up just enough control to allow myself to dangle on a rope 100ft in the air! Here are some pics of us zipping. Not the most flattering, but I wasn't out to impress anyone!

This was our group (we are on the right side on the end). They were a lot of fun, and I did find it amusing that Jake was the only male member of it! Except for our guide of course... I felt a lot better about the whole zipping situation after I found out that all of the ladies in our group were nurses! That way they might be able to revive me after I had fallen to my near death!

Pure Bliss

The tour is here and I couldn't be happier!!

(p.s. I googled Tour de France 2009 images and this pictures came up. It's a lie. This is not from 2009 for a couple of reasons: Lance Armstrong (pictured in yellow) has yet to wear yellow this tour (he missed it by 22 hundreths of a second yesterday), and the postal team hasn't been in operation for 6 years - it became the discovery team the last year that Lance won the tour in 2005. Yes, that is how much of a tour geek I am!)

Happy Independence Day!

We spent the holiday in downtown Boston! We figured that if we were going to celebrate it, we were going to go all out. After all, we are living in Boston, which has a HUGE 4th celebration. So we went downtown early to stand in a LONG line (they were expecting 500,00 people to show up) before we finally got into the shell. Once we had scored the all important wrist band (free, but they are given out on a first come basis)

we settled in for the long wait. 10 hours to be correct. If you don't get there early, you don't get in and you don't get to see the Boston Pops with Neil Diamond. So we did what we could to pass the time.

We were super prepared, but one thing we didn't quite account on was the sun. The sun has pretty much been a stranger as of late, so we had forgotten the damage it could do.Whoops! We were so glad that it was sunny for the 4th. We have had rain 30 of the last 33 days, so it was so nice to have a day of just sun!

We were super bored by about 7pm so we started having fun with the camera. Jake was trying to flip his hat onto his head.

He finally succeeded.

I also had a bit of fun.

We were really bored by this time, but not to worry because not too long afterward it all started and I got to see what I never really had a desire to see: Neil Diamond in concert. It was obvious he doesn't have to vocal chops he used to because he talked most of his lyrics rather than sang them. Oh well. Here was our view of Neil:

And then my favorite part was at the end of Stars and Stripes Forever: Overall, it was pretty cool. It was madness getting home on the T (the subway) and we almost were caught in the middle of a drunken fist fight, but we finally crawled into bed around 1:30am. But it was all worth it! Happy Independence Day!P.S. The Boston Pops are amazing! I never expected to be so impressed by them, but I really was! I mean, I guess they should be the best, but I still thought they were so good!

Boston Children's Museum!!

That Smell Is Making Me Sick!

A few night ago I was washing my face before bed, but Jake needed the sink so I kind of rushed the process. Because I was hurrying so fast, I thought I got a little bit of my face wash in my nose. Kind of gross, I know!

I didn't think much about it until the next day when I kept smelling my face wash and the smell started making me sick. I didn't want to eat anything, not even popcorn at the movie theater! (P.S. Don't take your husband/boyfriend/brother to see The Proposal. Not unless you want them drooling over an almost full-frontal of Sandra Bullock. Only the most bare minimum was covered to grab that PG-13 rating. I was very surprised. I'm glad I went alone.) The smell kept lingering and it made me just want to puke. I tried to blow my nose to get it out, and even considered flushing my nose out, but nothing helped. I finally got some food down and went to bed.

Then yesterday I woke up smelling the smell again! Through most of the day I felt sick again, but being the science person that I am, I realized that even if I had got some face wash in my nose, it would have dissipated by now, so it had to be something else. I sniffed my skin to see if it was my lotion. Nope. I sniffed my clothes to see if it was my detergent. Nope. I sniffed my hair to see if it was my new shampoo. Nope. And then the light bulb went on, and I reached for my new deodorant. BINGO! I had found the source of the smell that made me very sick!

I had just run out of my previous deodorant, the new Dove cucumber one. When I went to the store, this kind of Dove deodorant was on sale, 2 for $4. Normally, they are more than $4 a piece, and since I am a sucker for a sale, I bought 2. Why not, right? I mean, I will always need deodorant. Now I am kicking myself. Not only do I hate the smell (and yes, I did smell it before I bought it but it didn't bother me at first) but now I have 2 of them. Some people might like it. Not me. Now I need to go buy new deodorant at the store...

Randi Made It Through!!

Not that I was surprised. I only voted for her about a million times last night! Having danced with her when I was younger and being on student council with her, it's wierd to see her on tv. But I KNOW that girl can dance!