Goals for 2011

As I cleaned up the apartment on Conference weekend I came across the goals Kortney and I set for the year. I had been trying to find them to remember what goals we had set for ourselves and so I was very happy to find them. We decided for 2011 that we would set 11 goals. We found that we are well on our way to some and were happy to remember and rededicate ourselves to the rest.

1. Visit six capitols.

This is a bite-size chunk of our overall goal to visit all 50 state capitols eventually. We visited six last year (Jefferson City, MO; Springfield, IL; Topeka, KS; Denver, CO; Salt Lake City, UT; and Frankfort, KY) and figured that that was a pretty solid pace. So far this year we have been to two.

Boise, Idaho and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Thanks to the Moyers in Boise and the Thomas' in CO who helped make those trips possible!

2. End the year with absolutely no debt.

One of those grown-up goals. With Kortney's good job and the possibility I have of getting paid work after my externship with Franchise Foundry, this shouldn't be a problem.

3. Watch a season of 24 in 24 hours.

This is something I have always wanted to do. And with all the seasons of 24 coming to Netflix instant play, it is more possible than ever. At the beginning of the year there were only two seasons of 24 I hadn't seen. Season 6 and Season 7. Kortney had never seen an episode. We figured we could leisurely watch Season 6 together and then set a day when we would watch Season 7 in real time. The idea is that we would start the season at the same time the day starts (8am for season 7) and then end at the same time. Pausing during commercial breaks to let time catch up and starting again once the real time matched the time on the 24 clock. We have only two episodes left of season 6 so we only have 24:Redemption left to watch before our 24 day is upon us.

4. Visit a National Park

The only National Park I've ever been to is Yellowstone. I've lived in Utah for over a decade and haven't been to Zion's, Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, OR Bryce's. I wanted to set the goal at three national parks so that we could really take a chunk out of that horrid underappreciation of Utah's natural beauty, but Kortney talked me down to one. We may see Hot Springs, AR, in May (America's first national Park), or Yellowstone this summer, or one of Utah's. Either way, this one is a must.

5. Start our State Scrapbook and finish at least three states.

Kortney comes from a long line of accomplished scrapbookers and has wanted to chronicle our adventures in that medium. We decided a fun way to tell our story would be to have a section for each state and so instead of seeing what we have done in chronological order, we would instead have a Chapter for each time we have been through a state, full of pictures, mementos, souvenirs, etc. But, it won't happen if we don't get started, so this year, we begin. So far we have been to 16 states, so, we've got work to do.

6. Read the Book of Mormon

Though we both have read this book of scripture, we have never read it together. That's on the docket for this year. So far, we are in Mosiah.

7. Go hanggliding

This is something we have talked about doing since we were dating and have never done. We were going to go as a graduation present to me last April but the weather didn't permit. The point of the mountain is world reknown for its wind conditions and we would be remiss not to take advantage of this while we live so close.

8. Run in some kind of a race

We originally registered for the Red Rock Relay last year but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Humor U. This year, we would like to complete some kind of a race and see how that goes.

9. Improve Sundays

With our busy schedules it is easy to let certain important but non-urgent things slip between the cracks and this is most often the case with spiritual things. We figured we could start the process of improving ourselves by improving our use of Sundays as days of spiritual growth. This was a goal we had forgotten about until we found the list....so...we'll let you know how that goes from here.

10. Watch all the movies in the Disney Animated Canon.

There are 50. From Snow White to Tangled. We have a trip planned at the end of the year to go to DisneyWorld and we hope to finish this by then. The last one we watched was Sleeping Beauty (15) and the next will be 101 Dalmatians (16)

11.Throw an awesome President's Day Party.

Done and Done! See the post about it for pictures and a beautiful poem describing the event.

For the very first time today

I swam an entire mile.

I started swimming semi-regularly about a month ago in an attempt to get into better shape. I figured swimming would be a good way to get a full body work-out and would come in handy if I ever fell overboard or competed on Wipeout.

My first time at the pool I swam 6 laps and was completely exhausted. I did two laps of front crawl and barely kept from drowning, then switched to two laps backstroke and then decided to do one more of each before retiring, completely draining.

I decided that swimming a mile would be a fine goal and looked up how many laps were in a mile. The internet told me that a mile in an Olympic-size swimming pool is 16 laps. That was encouraging news! I was already swimming a third of my goal on my first day out.

I held this belief because the RB (BYU's athletic facilities) 's website stated that their facilities included two Olympic-size swimming pools. I wish I had read this excerpt from Wikipedia before shouting for joy. "Pools claimed to be "Olympic pools" do not always meet [Olympic regulations], as FINA cannot police use of the term."

As it turns out, BYU is going around claiming they have Olympic pools when really their pools are HALF THE SIZE of official Olympic pools. I was shocked. And discouraged. A mile in a BYU pool was actually 33 laps. Shocking, I know.

That seemed like an impossible amount of laps. A lap is two lenghts. There and back. I had done six. And I had nearly died.

I kept going though. I swam 10, then 12, then 14.

Before I knew it, it was getting easier and I had swam 22 laps. Two thirds of a mile. The problem was that it was taking me longer and longer and I had trouble finding time since the pool only holds open swims in the early morning and in the evening.

Finally tonight, I did it. It took me nearly 70 minutes, and the last third took me nearly half of that time, but I swam a mile. I did it! And it feels great. I think I would like to complete a triathlon someday in the near future. Anyone out there done that and can share any pointers?

President's Day 2011

The kitchen and the living room were separated by festive hats.

The coffee table held the name tags of Republicans and Democrats.

The ceiling was covered in stars and stripes balloons.

The kitchen cupboards were covered in political cartoons.

Pictures of each president were on the walls chronologically.

In preparation for the greatest President's Day Party!

Neither of us had ever felt so alive

As we waited for our invited guests to arrive.

(Winners for best dressed)

Many don't know what a President's Day Party is

Well it all begins with a President's Day Party quiz

Followed by a $100 money drop

That neither team that played proved able to stop

This was followed by a grown-up version of Memory

Matching the man to an event in his presidency.

"What more could there be?" is surely what you're thinkin'

How about an American Flag cake

and pin the hat on Abe Lincoln?

Thanks so much to all those who came to our first ever President's Day party and made my dream of 26 months become a reality! We had a blast and I hope you all did too!

It's Been an ENTIRE Year!!

Yesterday was Peter and I's One Year Anniversary!! I have no idea how time has flown by this quickly. It feels like I was planning our wedding just a few weeks ago. This has definitely been the best year of my life! I don't know what I possibly did to deserve such an amazing husband. We have so much fun together and I wouldn't trade one second of this year for anything. Peter treats me like a Princess and I love him with all my heart!! I don't know what I would do without him, and I am so happy that I will never have to figure that out. I am so excited for the many, many wonderful years to come!

Sculptures Part 1 of 3

Well, Kortney and I are back in Provo and are very busy indeed. Hence, blog neglect. We have tons of fun pictures from things we did this summer, and we are still trying to have adventures when time permits, but its harder to let all of our many followers about them. Little by little, I am hoping to recap some of our favorite St. Louis moments and then move on to our lives in Provo.

One thing that St. Louis was loaded with was art. There was a world class art museum (which we never went to) as well as many other smaller venues and tons of public gardens with lots of sculptures. We went and saw quite a few of them and got to be self-proclaimed sculture buffs. Three sculpture venues stood out as highlights of our artistic summer. This post is about the first, The Laumiere Sculpture Park:

We learned about this park from roadsideamerica which touted its giant eyeball as a must see attraction. Well, it definitely was:

According to roadsideamerica, the artist who made this eyeball has now made a second version of this same statue that is four times this size and sits in a public park in Chicago.

Kortney will probably not be pleased that I put this picture online, but oh well. This sculpture was pretty interesting to look at, however if you look carefully you'll see a bright red pillar sculpture in the back, we liked that one more, but I don't have any better pictures of it. This sculptor did a related sculpture in Citygarden that we liked more, so stay tuned for that one.

Some people who looked a lot like tibetan monks were sharing the Park with us. Kortney did not want me to take any pictures of them but I did this one from a distance so there was no awkward moment.

This was definitely one of our favorites. It was a very interesting visual. It seems effortlessly metaphorical (our lives are like a tangled knot that will never separate itself). We sat and talked on this sculpture for a nice while.

So much metaphor was going on on our walk around the park. Here we have the roots, just like the roots of our new family that we are trying to grow. This was an awesome sculpture to look at.

One of these was tiny, and one of them was huge. Thanks to Kortney's expert manipulation of perspective, they appear to be the same size. Are you tripping yet?

And that was our trip to Laumeier Sculpture Park. Oh the memories!

The Top 9 Things We Miss About Provo

Peter and I have had a blast here in St. Louis. We have definitely made the most of it and have done almost everything there is to do here (everything free at least :). We have had such a great time going on dates and spending quality time together and we wouldn't trade that for the world. The opportunity to leave Provo, leave all the obligations of school, friends, and family, just to be able to focus on us, has been such a good start to our wonderful marriage. But everything must, at some point, come to an end. We leave St. Louis and head back to Provo in less than one week, and honestly, we are really excited about it. I have caught myself day dreaming about all the things I miss about Provo and I have caught Peter doing the same at times. So, we have come up with this list:

The top 9 things we miss about Provo:
(In no particular order)

#1 - The Mountains

St. Louis is definitely beautiful in it's own way, but there is nothing here that can even compare to the mountains in Provo. Peter and I miss hiking. Don't let the picture fool you though, I do not miss snow at all.

#2 - Yo Zone

We are so YoZone deprived!

# 3 - Our Amazing Friends

We have a few fellow salesman buddies here, but other than that there is absolutely no one our age. We miss our wonderful friends so much!

#4 - The RB

(This one is for Kortney) The Richards Building at BYU is where I have spent the last 4 semesters of my life. I have a full time job here in St. Louis (I have to be available basically 24 hours a day), so I wasn't able to take any dance classes at all this summer. I miss dancing SO much! I am so excited to dance again! =D

#5 - Lack of Humidity

The humidity is disgusting here. I grew up in Tennessee, so you would think I would be use to it. Lets just say, Provo has spoiled me rotten. Peter is not use to it at all. He would work 8 hour days knocking door out in the heat and humidity, he never complained, but I felt so bad for him and I know it was torture. We are so excited to get back to Provo so we can actually do things outside again.

#6 - Humor U

(This is mostly for Peter) Peter was the President of Humor U, BYU's stand-up comedy troop, back in Provo and intends to reclaim that title once we get back. Seriously, it has been killing him being away from Humor U. He is so excited to perform again. And I am so excited to watch him perform!

#7 - Cousin Dinners

Peter's cousins are amazing! About once a month Aunt Cindy and Uncle Rob invite all the cousins over to their house for cousin dinner. And let me tell you, Aunt Cindy is one of the most amazing cooks on the planet. We catch up, laugh, play games, and just have a great time. It seriously is a blast and we have missed it SO much while we have been away. (Congrats to Heidi and Chad who just got married August 7! We are so sad we missed it. We love you!)

#8 - Family

Having Pete's family close to us in Utah has been so wonderful. It is nice to be able to get together on a regular basis and stay close to his family. Also, having my brother Tyler right there in Provo with me has been great! My younger brother Travis will be at BYU this fall as well. I love having family close by. They are wonderful and we miss them so much.

#9 - Our Boardgames

I know this is really lame, but whatever. Peter and I decided we didn't have room in the car on the trip to St. Louis to bring many boardgames. So, we only chose three games to bring with us this summer. In the meantime we have ordered one more while we have been out here because we got kind of sick of the three we brought. Back in Provo we have 25-30 different boardgames. We are excited to get back to them. =D

*WE LEAVE ST. LOUIS IN 4 DAYS AND WE CAN'T WAIT!!! =D*

The Disney Canon

When Kortney and I were long distance last summer, we made a list of things we were gonna do when we were back together. Some things were cute, like learn a new recipe together, some things were spiritual, like go to Conference together, and some things were adventurous, like climbing a mountain peak. Two items were a little ambitious. The first was to road trip to Mt. Rushmore (this was my suggestion), the second was go to Disneyworld (her suggestion). Well, we did about 20 of the 30 things on our list before leaving Provo for the summer. On our way out to St. Louis for the summer we made a 10 hour detour and went to see Mt. Rushmore. It was AMAZING. And now, as our summer draws to a close and we head back to Provo we are putting together our plans for making the second item, Disneyworld, a reality.

Our tentative plan right now is to go out in May, once the school year is over, and spend a couple days in Orlando doing all four of Disney's parks and both of the Universal parks. We are planning on going with Ali and Brent, our Tenessee couple friends who get done with classes the second week in May. Ali is a Disney expert as that is the regular family vacation for her. She will be our guide.

My only Disney experience is with Euro Disney which my family went to right before we moved back to the States. I was too short to go on any of the good rides and my inability to go on the Indiana Jones ride (my hero at the time) is what I most remember from that trip. It was very disappointing to me at that time. So I don't really know what to expect.

Kortney and I have season passes to Six Flags this summer and she was explaining to me not to base my expectations around an amusement park like that. Disneyworld is a theme park. The rides are not there to be thrill rides, they aren't roller coasters, etc. The whole Disney experience lies in seeing the Princesses and visiting the different lands and its all an excersice in nostalgia. Apparently.

Well, I suggested that in order to get the most out of our money we needed to go through a crash course in Disney. We looked up the list of all the Disney animated classics and there are currently 50, Princess and the Frog being the latest. We made a spreadsheet, looked up which are available on Netflix (all but 7) and decided that we would do it. We would watch the whole canon in chronological order.

This was today. We also hopped on YouTube and discovered that most Disney movies uploaded on there in 10 minute increments. We decided to get a jump on our goal and watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I can't believe how much I enjoyed it. Her voice is rather shrilly I must say, but I laughed at the gags more in this movie than I've laughed in most comedies for a long time. It was great. If you haven't seen an old Disney movie in a while, I recommend going back and reliving those old memories. These movies really are timeless. Next up...Pinocchio!