I am a lucky man

As I have looked over my Google analytics, I have been very interested by the fact that we have been visited from 24 different countries. That seemed like a lot to me for a blog that is not very internationally themed at all.

We have a suspicion that many of our oversea visitors are LDS missionaries who at some point were romantically interested in Kortney and obviously have not gotten over her. To the point of online stalking!

The rest of this post is for them.

I am a lucky man.

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!