Zion National Park Fun

This past weekend, Mike & I took a trip to Zion National Park. It was a much needed relaxer after a tough winter. We journeyed down with Karen & Kevin. The real reason for going was so that Karen could participate in a 10k in Ivins (part of St. George). We had decided that due to the late hour of arriving, to spend the night in Mesquite and then get Karen to St. George by 7:50 AM. We got to the hotel around midnight Utah time, set the alarm, bunkered down and really slept well. We woke up to Karen realizing that we had 10 minutes to get to St. George to meet her brother. It all turned out OK though. We made it the St. George in record time, they had too many runners and so the buses didn't all leave by the 8:30 deadline and Karen did awesome on her run!

We made it to Zion around 2 and found the perfect camp site. We set up our tent and then headed over to the visitor center. The original plan had been to hike Angel's Landing, however due to the late hour, we decided to hold off on that hike until the next day. We did the Emeral Pools hike (which is very beautiful) and the Weeping Rock hike. It was a beautiful day and only got a little chilly every now and then.

We got back to camp and were able to watch about 10 deer in the field right next to us eating. It was fun to sit there and watch them. They were really close and didn't get spooked at all. We then had some 'dang' good chili (Bear Creek, yummmmmmmm) and bunkered down to bed.

Sunday morning, we woke up to snow. Out the window went Angel's Landing. No way was I going to do that hike in bad weather (for those not familiar with it, there are portions you are walking on a precipice holding onto a chain...not for the faint of heart). We decided to do the River Walk, which isn't really a hike but more of a walk. It was beautiful. We would definately suggest anybody do do this 'hike' while in Zion. We then did the Lookout hike. This is a very fun hike, Karen and Kevin neglected to inform us that there is a portion where you are walking under the cliff on a bridge with a huge drop below you. However, we would suggest to make sure when you do this hike to make sure you aren't hiking in a cloud. Instead of the beautiful overlook, we just saw CLOUD. It was fun though and I even got hot enough that I shed all of my winter gear.

Overall, it was a very fun trip and Mike is counting the days until we can go again. I definately put the veto on June or July though, can you imagine 100+ degree weather to do hikes? No thank you. I will take the snow any day over that!

The Futility of things...

Have you ever sat down to do something, actually did it for a couple of hours and felt that you wasted your time? Welcome to my life when it comes to writing research papers. In my Modern British Literature class, I have to write a 10-15 page (don't you love the parameters of that?) research paper showing how 3 or more of the books or short stories we have read this semester tie together. Much as I love finding connecting themes in different styles and types of literature (please note the sarcasm here), doing it for 3 or more works and in at least 10 pages is excrutiating.

I decided that I would love to write my paper on the post-colonialism aspect of E.M. Forster's novel "A Passage to India." For those who have not read this, it is a really good novel, but it made me very angry at the way the Indian's in the novel are treated; basically as sub-class citizens. Post-colonialism is a type of literary theory where you look at novels, or any work, written by the 'white man' from the eye's of the citizens of any of the English colonies, or by reading any work written by these same citizens. Doing this for one novel is hard enough, but then to know that I have to incorporate more into it? For crying out loud...

Well, I have some research time today (thanks to my wonderful teacher who thinks that we need a full week of spring break and so she scheduled research time for our class today) and so I came home to research for this other class. I have been sitting at my computer for 2 hours searching for any articles about post colonialism, E.M. Forster, Jean Rhys, Virginia Wolfe, George Orwell or H.G. Wells. These are the authors of the stories that I am tying together. They all, in some way or another, either through story or character have some tie to India or the English colonies. I have had absolutely no luck. So, what do I do? I turn to my blog and write a post about my frustrations.

For any of you who have had English classes and have any ideas or suggestions that could possibly, in some way or form, help me out, it would be absolutely wonderful! If you are just looking for something to read and want the names of the novels by the above authors, I can help you out there. I would give a voice or warning though that Virginia Wolfe was not exactly an enjoyable read. Her novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway' contains absolutely no chapters and is very disjointed (cunningly of course) in how it is put together. When I asked my professor if all of her works were written like this, he said yes, which added to the enjoyment of reading her. I think in my mind it just confirms that I may have to be hard pressed to pick any of her works up again...no matter that there are many people that absolutely love her work.

Long Time...

I feel like it has been forever since I have placed a blog. It has been a crazy month. Anyway, I would first like to apologize for my overly pink, feminine blog page...I am sure Mike absolutely loves it! Besides being really busy at work and school, things have been good. We loved the warm weather last week and actually spent some time in the yard cleaning it up. Oh, it looked so sad after this winter, but it is on a comeback!

We are looking forward to a little trip next weekend. We are heading down to Zion National Park for the weekend with some good friends. Mike will learn that he probably will never want to go hiking with me again as I will probably make him carry the majority of my camera equipment. We are really looking forward to getting away from civilization again and to have some good ole' times. I will update with some pictures that I take. Golly, I wish it were tomorrow that we were heading out.

In addition, we are looking forward in a month to going to Elko. Our niece has been asking when Aunt Becky and Uncle Mike were going to go visit. Well, my sister needs a toy box taken out to her from my parents house, so we are killing two birds with one stone. That will be fun also. It is great that these winter months are leaving and My favourite season (Spring) is here and Mike's favourite season (if you can count from March to Oct a season) is definitely here. Expect a ton of camping pictures this summer!

Tag, you're it!

1. What were you doing 10 years ago.

I was 4 months into my mission, trying to get used to the hot, humid weather of Yap. I was constantly dripping sweat and loving the people that I was meeting.

2. 5 things on my to-do list today:

1. Read my literary theory book, Culler, chapter 6.
2. Re-write my lesson plan to include a reading strategy.
3. Work on the calendar layouts I made for Mike.
4. Call my visiting teachee to make an appointment.
5. Call my scouts to let them know that there is not scouts tomorrow (because of stake temple week.)

3. 5 snacks that I enjoy:

1. Mike's thick brownies...ummmm....good.
2. These chocolate almond clusters from Costco. Again a Mike introduced treat. Good stuff.
3. Quaker Oats granola bars.
4. Cabella Pretzels. Yet again, another treat introduced by Mike.

4. 3 bad habits:

1. Chewing gum and popping bubbles with it.
2.Letting my ADD take control and actually walk off to do something in the middle of a conversation.
3. Twirling or playing with my hair. I can't leave it alone.

5. What would you do if you were instantly a billionaire?

1. Buy a house.
2. Pay off all debt, including the student loans that will one day be there.
3. Buy Mike his great big, white, 4x4 pickum up truck.
4. Anonomously give money and things to good people.
5. Buy Mike a cabin in the mountains.

6. 5 places I've lived:

1. Orem, Utah
2. Provo, Utah
3. London, England
5. Kolonia, Pohnpei
6. Colonia, Yap

7. 5 things people don't know about me:

1. I played the violin for 6 years. I had to audition my senior year for a seat and won the last chair of the second violins. I think that if the teacher had a choice, she wouldn't have let me be in the class!
2. I was in the musical, "Music Man."
3. I can't bend my pinkie finger. My sister cut it off when I was 3.
4. I have been bitten by a monkey. I scared the crap out of me.
5. I have really weird dreams. In fact, the other day, I dreamed that President Bush called me, in return to the phone call that I placed to him. To top it off, I made the phone call from work, and he was so kind to call me on the 1-800 line for my work.

I am tagging Jennie, Miranda, Caitlyn, Scott & Rachel. I expect to see your blogs up soon!

Valentine's Blog

How long have you been married? 7 1/2 months
How long did you date? We were supposed to date first? Shoot! No, really about 7 weeks.
How old is he? 25
How old are you? 31
Who eats more? He does.
Who said "I love you" first? He did.
Who sings better? I would say me, but every time we are in the car and I start to sing, Mike turns the radio on...what is he suggesting? (Mike says: "I just want you to sing louder dear")
Who is smarter? Mike says I am, but I am no help at all in a lot of the things he does, so I would say we are each smarter in different things.
Who does the laundry? I do. Mike has done it twice since we have been married.
Who does the dishes? I do. Mike has done the dishes when there is a guilt trip involved. (Mike says, "That is a woman's job")(Hmmm....he is really cruising, isn't he?) Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Mike does.
Who pays the bills? I do. In fact, Mike just signed his first check out of our checking account in the whole time we have been married.
Who mows the lawn? Definitely Mike. If I have to do the dishes, he has to mow the lawn.
Who cooks dinner? Me again, although Mike has surprised me with dinner in the past.
Who is more stubborn? We are both probably equally stubborn.
Who kissed who first? Mike kissed me.
Who asked who out? I asked Mike to go to an art exhibit with me, he asked me to dinner. So we asked each other out on our first date.
Who proposed? Mike did, 3 different times.
Who is more sensitive? I am. I cry very easily, much to Mike's bewilderment.
Who has more friends? We seem to share our friends lately, so we have all the same friends. Who has more sibilings? Me. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother, Mike has 2 sisters.
Who wears the pants? Mike does, although we talk about decisions that should be made jointly. Who are you tagging? Jennie, Miranda and anybody else that wants to do this. (I know that it is after Valentines, but it is all in fun, right?)

It's about time

There have been a few things I have been putting off, mainly because I didn't want to face them, namely taking the ACT so that I can apply for the education program. Well, Mike has been watching me stress about this test for the last couple of months, taking pre-tests, studying and such and finally got tired of it. He said to me on Sunday, "Honey, I challenge you to do whatever it is you need to do to take the ACT this week." How could I pass a challenge like that? Really, all I needed to do was register and I was putting it off because I didn't think I was going to pass the math. Really, it was kinda scary for me, Math is one of those horrid subjects, one that I don't do well in at all.

So, I looked up on the UVSC website, found out that the test is given every Thursday at 8:30 in the AM, signed myself up, called in sick to work and took the test. After I opened the testing booklet and started the English portion, I had the thought..."too late to turn back now" and continued on. The English, Reading and Science weren't too bad, and all of my praying must have really helped (which was a constant during the entire test and the time leading up to it) because the Math didn't seem to be too bad either. Either the math portion on the ACT is all of a sudden stuck in my brain (with a lot of help from above) or it is WAY easier than the preparation book that I had been studying out of. I think that it is probably more of the help from above.

Anyway, the test ended (almost 4 hours later and a very sore rear end) and I passed my answer sheet in. One of the nice things about UVSC is they give you your scores in about 5 minutes. So, I sat and very anxiously waited for those 5 minutes to pass and then I got my scores. To apply for the education program, you need to get an overall score of 23 with no lower than 18 in any subject. This was very worrying for me as I had gotten an 13 score on the math pretest. Well, she handed out the papers with our score and I got a 20 in math (Yes I was so excited!) with an overall score of 26. I really didn't believe the score and went back into the room to ask if I was reading it right. I was and I skipped out to the car and excitedly called Mike!

I am glad for the challenge that Mike gave me because all I was doing was worrying and fretting about it and now it is done. Yes, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It seems so easy from here on out (I know it isn't, but please let me enjoy at least a day of thinking it is.)

So, Goodnight to all. I hope you all have some very exciting news to share also, like Miles learning how to roll over!

WPM

Do you know how many WPM you can type? Mike asked me and I decided to find out. I googled typing tests online and found quite a few. One of the most fun and accurate seemed to be this one.

Typing Test

It is a little crazy in that it asks you to capitalize words where they shouldn't but that is the fun of actually following a typing test! I found that on average, I type about 73 WPM. (If I didn't care about errors, I could type as fast as 88 WPM, but then there were a lot of errors!) I guess all of those English papers have come in handy, huh?

Let me know how you do if you take the test!