Halloween, and the previous weekend

Here is a picture of little Brandon working hard on our false wall. It was supposed to be gold but turned out to be about the color of the couch. Bummer. We can at least re-paint it.

I decided that I couldn't go the entire day without wearing a costume, so I dressed up as a "shady lady" before going to a friend's house for soup.

Last week I got to stay in Salt Lake while Brandon took his FE test. Since it started at 7:45 AM and I had nowhere to go, I went and took pictures of the temple because it's generally pretty in the fall. Can anyone spot the big dipper in the vertical picture of the temple? The people who built the Salt Lake temple actually put the big dipper on the west side and the stars align and point directly to the north star. It's very faint, but it's there, in the blank space on the center pillar.

And here it is with the pretty fall colors. I actually wan't too bored in Salt Lake- I went to the gateway and got a skirt for $2, visited a friend, and visited grandma and grandpa. After the test Brandon and I went out to Cheesecake factory to celebrate. Brandon got the crunchy cashew chicken and it turned out being one of the best things I've had there. Yum.

Dear people who can't read Fernash's blog,

Have you tried using Internet Explorer to view it instead of Mozilla? I always have problems seeing it on Mozilla but it's just fine on IE.

The things I learn about Brandon

I learn new things about Brandon every day. Yesterday we were shopping at Wal-mart and stocking up on food (we returned so many wedding presents there that we had plenty of money for groceries.) We were in the "Oriental foods" aisle and Brandon asked me if I wanted to get anything else. I told him that I would like to make sweet and sour pork and I reached for a bottle of sweet and sour sauce. Then he stopped me and said, "Shady, don't get that, we can make it." Confused, I said, "You can't just make this stuff--you have to buy it. Like the sweet and sour pork that I had at your house. Where did you get the sauce for that?" "We made it," he said. "It's nothing more than vinegar, sugar, and a little bit of ketchup." Needless to say, I kept saying "Really? Seriously?" for about 10 minutes. I mean, I knew his family always made their own bread and syrup and pickles and window cleaner, but, sweet and sour sauce? You have to draw the line somewhere. I had always assumed that there were certain things that everyone just bought.

Another thing I learned about Brandon that day struck me when I dropped him off for his FE review. He asked me if I wanted to come see the sandbox. I said okay and he took me into his lab where I saw just that-- a giant sandbox. I told him that I always thought that he did work for his classes, not play in a giant sandbox. I said that if this is what geologists do then I should be a geologist. He said that they didn't play in it, they just observed it. Then I pointed to a muscular little figurine standing in it and said, "That looks like a toy to me."

That's okay. Brandon does more work in his classes than I do, even if it involves a giant sandbox. And now I get to learn how to make sweet and sour sauce so that I can likewise confuse little girls like me who thought that everything came from stores.

Sick day

I had a sick day on Tuesday. Normally I think sick days aren't that bad-- I get to stay home and sleep all day, and Brandon gives me a hug about every 30 seconds and asks if I'm ok. The not-so-fun part is the throbbing head and the fact that it came during midterms. (Brandon is also a little sick.)

But we both need to be better by Saturday, because Brandon has his FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) test in Salt Lake. It's one of those tests that sounds huge and scary. I just can't wait until it's over and he doesn't have to go to any more reviews.

10 easy steps to make your blog cute

This is mainly for Mom, because she asked, but anyone else can use this too.

What I did for MTB's blog is:
1. go to thecutestblogontheblock.com.
2. sign into your blog in another window.
3. pick out a background that you want on said website.
4. go to "layout" on your blog.
5. in "add and arrange page elements," go to "add gadget" (at the side of the page).
6. click on "add Javascript/html"
7. at thecutestblogontheblock.com, click on the background you want. There will be an html code below the instructions. Highlight and copy the html code.
8. paste the html code on the "add Javascript/html" window.
9. click "save."
10. now you have a new background for your blog!

Note: before you do this you need to make sure that the template for your blog (under Layout--> pick new template) is Minima. These steps also won't guarantee you a cute header-- I make those in Photoshop.

Why Brandon hates cats

Aren't these little faces just adorable? Well, they're nothing but trouble, according to Brandon. He has gone through no less than 50 cats in his life (the big cat has 4-5 kittens in each litter, and she gives birth about every 6 months.) His family manages to give away most of the kittens, but as you will soon see, they have a much worse track record with animals (not just cats) than we do. If you think that every pet's dream is living on a big open farm, you're wrong. They live on 2.5 fenceless acres and most of their pets suffer very violent deaths.

One of his cats and one of his dogs died by "bleeding out their butts." Brandon was supposed to shoot the cat but it got away and ended up dead on their porch a few days later. A few of his dogs either ran away or were run over. One puppy was run over by the lawn mower (luckily it was the tire, not the blade.) Two kittens crawled into the sawdust vaccuum tube and got stuck there. They came sliding out a couple of months later. One kitten had its leg bitten almost off by a dog-- Cameron and Mia had fun picking out the maggots after that happened. Gross. But Brandon's favorite story is about his cousin's puppy Fluffy. It was stupid and liked to chase cars. It got caught under the wheel of a car it was chasing and was tossed up in the air by the motion of the wheel. On its way down it was hit again by an oncoming car.

Any animal lucky enough to escape death then has to face Mia-- at least until they're too old to be cute.

And if Brother thinks that Alice's peeing in his suitcase is bad, imagine having your cat give birth on the foot of your bed. That happened to Cameron a few months ago. Brandon was lucky enough to have the cats give birth under his bed. He also had to rescue a couple of litters out of the attic.

Their cats could be unusually generous, though. One Christmas morning they went outside to find that their cat had killed about 50 mice and placed them ont he floor by the car. Apparently it kept it up for about a week, so they would find a new peace offering every morning. It also used to disembowel mice and neatly line up the entrails on the doorstep.

Don't feel bad, mom. Any of these animals would have loved to stay at our house. With this said, I think I can guess that Brandon and I will never own any cats. He has had a few too many give birth on his watch.

Why Brandon's family is cool:

They had extra condo points so they booked us a condo in Midway for a weekend in November.

6 random things about Brandon

Since Brandon won't post 6 random things about himself, I'm doing it for him. I'll forgo posting the rules and tagging people since he doesn't even have 3 blogger friends to tag. Here goes:

1. He played soccer in high school and his nickname was "the destroyer" because he sent more players off the field than anyone else on the team. He got a yellow card for kicking another player in the face, and another for kicking a kid in the stomach (they were in the way of the ball).

2. His favorite food is shrimp. He once went to the Sizzler and got the steak and shrimp combo which comes with endless shrimp. He ate the entire steak plus more than 100 shrimp.

3. He loves to correct people. He has already corrected me numerous times on this post. He claims that I tell his stories wrong. Now he is saying, "Claims? I think it's a pretty fair claim."

4. He is a great artist. He is the only person in his school's history to have gotten two 5's on the AP art exams. He draws pretty weird things too, such as a woman in a crocodile costume, his cousin in a sombrero and poncho shooting a rifle, and a menacing blue face.

5. He hates buying things for himself, but he doesn't mind spending money on me. Yesterday we went shopping and he told me to buy just about everything I looked at. He once convinced me to buy a dress just so that I could wear it on a date with him. The summer before we were engaged we went out to eat at least three times a week. It was awesome.

6. He also loves to snowboard. When I was in Mexico he sent me a video of him doing jumps. He claims it was a terrible video, but he looked extremely crazy in it. He even used to go snowboarding in shorts occasionally.

Lucky day

Apparently yesterday was my lucky day. Every once in awhile I have those, and they're awesome. First, work was really slow and Brandon came to visit me, so I got to do nothing but talk to him and scoop honey butter for 30 minutes. Then, the guy that usually comes in late and makes me stay late for work came in on time and told me that he would just try to "hold it" until his shift was over so that I could go home. (He has OCD, so his bathroom breaks are about 45 minutes long. I would have had to stay 45 minutes over my shift.) Then, I found out that my new generic perscription is $47 cheaper than my old one, so now Brandon and I can afford to go on dates. And finally I stumbled upon a cute way to do my hair that's really easy. I love lucky days.

Tagged again! How fun.

Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you: Poodle
Post the rules on your blog
Write six random things about yourself
Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I dye the underside of my hair brown to add contrast to my hair.

2. I sleep much better since I've been married, except when Brandon talks in his sleep. Then I try to stay awake and listen to him because it's funny.

3. I am convinced that my kids will be the most photographed people in the world, because I LOVE my camera.

4. I want lots of pets. I almost took home one of Brandon's cats. He convinced me that it wasn't a good idea. Thanks, frontal lobes.

5. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase where I was mad at everything and sulked in my room most of the time.

6. I worry that when Brandon starts making money, I will spend it all. I've already started a mental list of things we need to get when he gets a real job. I could go crazy.

I tag Brandon, Landon Wiest, and BROTHER!!!

Ashley, the sweet spirit

I had forgotten about how nice Ashley is until she came back to BYU last week. The first thing she said to me when she saw me was this:
Wow, you look so skinny. I thought you'd get fat after you got married.

She is also so accepting of everone she meets. She would never stereotype anyone. Like when she met Meagan's boyfriend for the first time and we had this conversation:
Ashley: You're a lot cooler than I thought you'd be. I figured you'd be a dorky BYU boy. You know, one of those overly perky returned missionaries.
Me: Ummm... he doesn't even go to BYU.

Or this conversation:
Me (seeing a commercial on TV) : That girl looks like the Cougareat secretary.
Ashley: Yeah she does.
Me: You've never even met the cougareat secretary.
Ashley: I know, but that girl looks like a BYU girl, so she has to look like the Cougareat secretary.
Me: So now all short girls with brown hair are "BYU girls?"

I know a short girl with brown hair that went to BYU. She's very perky, and she's a returned missionary. Ashley, you're a BYU girl. You might say that you don't miss BYU, but you sure fit the part. You dug this hole on your own.

I tagged myself

Your High School's full name: Ronald Reagan High School
mascot: rattlesnake. Although the bronze one outside always got its head and tail cut off so it looked more like a rope.
Did you date anyone from your school? Apparently a lot of guys thought they were dating me; I only admitted to dating 2.
What kind of car did you drive? red dented Corolla. I still drive it, and love it.
It's Friday night, where are you? Traipsing around, or grounded, or hanging out with mom.
Were you a party animal? No.
Were you considered a flirt? Yeah, hence the handful of guys that thought I was their girlfriend.
Were you in any clubs? Oh yeah. Art club, film club, JETS, Acedemic UIL, Spanish honors society, TSA, NHS (until they kicked me out for not attending meetings)
Did you ever get suspended or expelled? No, but I skipped a lot my senior year.
Can you still sing the fight song? I never could
Who were your favorite teachers? Sra. Frye (spanish), Mr. Ricketts (art), and Mr. Valderrama (history)
Where did you sit during lunch? Carrie or Jennifer. I sat with other people but I didn't like it.
With whom did you go to Homecoming? Jr. year- Matt, Sr. year- Marques
If you could go back and re-do High School, what would you do? I would have ditched most of my superficial friends and hung out with my mom more.
What do you remember about graduation? My friend from my government class yelled out "FEMA" when he saw me, because we once both yelled it out at the same time in class. After graduation mom, dad, brother, and I went out to Alexander's to eat and dad and brother talked about economics.
Do you plan on going to your 10 year reunion? No, that's what Facebook is for.

We are annoying.

That's right, Brandon and I are annoying. I wouldn't want to be our friend. Last night when we were watching the History channel, the narrator was talking about boulders deposited in Central Park during the ice age. He said that they had remained there for "eons." I looked at Brandon and said, "How long is an eon? I hear the term all the time but I doubt that anyone knows what it means." Apparently Brandon was wondering the same thing, so he looked it up. We found out that an eon covers a span of at least 500 million years (there have only been 4 eons in the history of the earth). Since the last ice age ended about 13,000 years ago, the narrator was way off. So we will probably never again let someone use the word "eon" without correcting them, because 95% of the time, it's not used correctly.

I wouldn't want to be our teacher, either. Well, we don't really give our teacher a hard time, we just make fun of her behind her back. She had us read an article about a geologist who dated the Sphinx to about 5,000 BC. Archaeologists, an opinionated bunch, think that it was built no earlier than 2,500 BC because they haven't found evidence for an earlier culture capable of building it. So our archaeology teacher ripped this article apart, saying that he failed to take the archaeological record into account and even telling us that the article was published in a science fiction magazine. But what she failed to take into account was the fact that all of his observations of erosion were pretty convincing, and since he's a geologist, basing his case on the archaeological record would have been pretty dumb. She also didn't tell us that he published the same case in a peer-reviewed science magazine. Instead of saying, "We haven't found enough arcaeological evidence for this, so he must be wrong," she should have said, "Erosion patterns indicate that it was built earlier, so the archaeological record must be incomplete. " As for me, I'll agree with the field that has the lesser amount of BS inherent, and that's geology.

Great classes

I really like my classes this semester. I'm only taking one Spanish class, and it's the Spanish-American Novel. What we do is read books, come to class, and talk about them. It's like book club in Spanish.

In my Mesoamerican Archaeology class, we're learning about the Olmecs. They were pretty weird. They liked carving statues of ugly human-jaguar babies.

My Astronomy class is just about the easiest class I've taken in college. Our final project is "our interpretation of astronomy." My teacher says he's had drawings, songs, and interpretive dances about the universe, and they all got A's. I'm going to paint some nebulas. The one above is Lagoon Nebula--it's my favorite one. I'm excited to do it, I just need to decide on a medium. Brandon's helping me with that.

Our marriage

For Sunday school Brandon and I have been going to the newlyweds class. Yesterday we were supposed to write down things that each of us brought to the relationship. I looked at Brandon's paper and he had written, "I bring the frontal lobes to the relationship. Shady brings the amygdala." I think he's been listening to Mom too much.

And for those who are wondering, Brandon does call me Shady-- quite possibly more often than he calls me Lindsey.

Dear Utah,

I couldn't be more happy with you this year. I was sorely disappointed last year when you selfishly withheld the entire fall season and went directly from summer into winter. You have done much better this year. The leaves are already beautiful. I'm looking forward to more cool weather.
Love, Shady

weird story

I have a weird story to tell. On Tuesday when I came into work, there was a Brick Oven bag on top of the pastry holder. A co-worker told me that it was for me; a wedding present. Someone had dropped it off at the office. I opened the bag and found a sushi kit, a book, and a card from Fern and Reed Peterson. It was a great gift. What I can't understand, though, is how Fern and Reed Peterson got the present to my work. Were they visiting? Did they have someone else drop it off? Had they recently been to Brick Oven? How did they know that I work there? How did they find the office? It confused me for the rest of the day.

I guess it's one of those stories that I'll never have an explanation for. Kind of like when I found a crab in my bathroom. But that's a story for another day.

wedding album, a few pages

Correction

Okay, fine. I only took one of those pictures, and only a couple more of them were actually my idea (although Brandon had the same idea so he would have taken them anyways). Most of my pictures only made it to the semi-finals. As for the editing, Brandon did it and asked for my advice once in awhile. So I won't try to steal any more of Brandon's thunder. I am officially the less artistic one. But I still take credit for the idea for the project.

More, for Bethy.

Bethany,
These pictures are all on snapfish. You can get them in 11x14, 12x18, 16x20, and 20x30. Just let me know and I will crop them to the right dimensions. If not, then Snapfish crops them for you, and it sometimes messes up the picture.

more

The finalists (a few)

Brandon and I have two common interests: photography and National parks. Thanks to the camera that Mom gave us, we have been able to combine those two this summer. With a little photo editing, Brandon and I are starting a collection of black-and-white National Parks photos. Because of our budget and space constraints, we can only hang 12- 8x10 pictures on our wall. Here are some of the finalists. (Hint: click on the pics. They look much cooler in full size.)

Above: Craters of the Moon lava tube

Top left: Aspen trunks at Grand Teton

Bottom left: Wyoming sky and the Tetons

What's even more interesting is Brandon's idea for hanging them. Since we only get 2 nail holes per wall, Brandon came up with the idea of hanging a false wall (peice of plywood painted whatever color we want) and hanging the pictures on it. This will be cool.

Fernash, I'm planning on doing your blog on Monday.

Today I went hiking in my wedding dress

Just so that I could take this picture.

It's not the only one I have, though, so don't worry mom.

PS- Everyone go to Brandon's blog and congratulate him.

Why Education Week sucks

This week is Education Week at BYU. For those who have never experienced it, it's like EFY for adults. They can get a "Campus Guest" pass which gets them into all sorts of classes hosted by BYU professors and Mormon celebrities. From what I hear, it's really great for the attendants. However, it sucks for the poor students who have to work at the Cougareat during that week. The good thing is that I get lots of hours. I work 7 hours/day this week. If you're scooping ice cream, 7 hours is a very long time. It gets a bit overwhelming. Here are the reasons why I hate it:

a sore back and arms from scooping rock-hard ice cream.
women who ask for a large when you know they can't handle more than a small and tell you it's too big when they get it.
old men who complain about how expensive our ice cream is. (seriously, $1.89 is ridiculously cheap for what we give)
not being able to sleep because I keep having dreams about ice cream and customers
women who ask for "BYU brownies" but don't specify which of our 6 different kinds they want.
women who wave their money in the air when they want our attention. some day I'll tell them it's not an auction.
women who ask if we have any sugar-free ice cream. the name of our store is Sugar n' Spice-- one would think they'd figure it out.
shakes.

Like mother, like Shady

Everybody knows that Mom has a sweet tooth. I figured that out as soon as I was old enough to hunt down her candy stashes. I have always thought that I didn't get that sweet tooth-- I generally like salty foods. Living near Brandon's family changed my mind about that. They love sweet foods, but they are all about the sugary/fruity/sour variety. I was fine for the first few weeks, but pretty soon I started feeling like there was something missing in my life. That was chocolate. And ice cream and doughnuts. When Brandon's family went out of town, his mom told us that she had left us some candy in the closet. To my disappointment, the candy consisted of redvines and cinnamon bears. As much as I love cinnamon bears, I yearned for chocolate. Now that I'm back, I've never been happier to go to work where I can sample ice cream and gaze at doughnuts all day. And I am waiting for the next holiday to be over so that I can start my very own stash of 75% off chocolate candy. Mom, I never knew how much I was like you.

It's over!

Brandon and I finally found a place to live! It's really tiny, but it's close to campus, pretty nice, and only $515/month. We are going to sign a contract tomorrow. Hooray!!!

The great housing quest

Brandon and I have had all sorts of bad luck finding housing. I think it all started in April with the landlady that made an appointment with me to show an apartment, didn't show up, and when I called back, told me that the apartment I had looked at was never available anyways. So we found a place for the summer, thinking that we would have all summer long to find a place for fall. But alas, we moved to Idaho. There we had a choice between living in a smelly, spider-infested basement and living at Brandon's parents' house. We chose the basement, where we actually killed 20 spiders in one night. Big ones, too. Now we are back in our nice apartment with three weeks to find a place to live. It's hard, considering that apartments are usually gone within a day of being posted. Of course, that's only if you are able to contact the person who posted them. I emailed about one apartment on Saturday and never got a reply, then this morning I found it posted somewhere else with a phone number. I called and nobody answered. Very typical. To get into Wymount, you have to be the first to click on an apartment when they are posted at 4:00. We sat by the computer for 15 minutes before 4:00 today and finally saw a highlighted apartment at 4 on the dot. But by the time Brandon clicked on it, someone had already gotten to it. It was gone in literally less than a second.

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty frustrated about the whole thing. Hopefully this will be over within a few days.

Last days in Idaho

I know, I haven't posted in a long time. My last weekend in Idaho was fun. Brandon and I went boating with his cousins at Bear Lake. Here is what we did:



Lane, Brandon, and McKay is buried in the mud. I was mostly with them all day.



McKay emerging from the sand.



We played king of the tube until Lane elbowed me in the face. Ouch--bloody nose.



Then we rode a giant banana behind the boat.



On our way home, McKay and Lane were really excited about asking me questions about girls and McKay named me his official dating advisor. I think someone should write a book about McKay, because he's one of the most interesting people I know. He once lived in a tent for the entire month of January for some really dumb reason. He wears basketball shorts under all of his clothes (even to church) so that he can be as comfortable as possible. However, I didn't know this at first, so on my first Sunday in Idaho, I was a little freaked out when McKay started to take his pants off in front of me. A few nights ago he tried to chase the skunk that I found in his garage because he wanted to say that he's been sprayed by a skunk. To his disappointment, the skunk just ran away.



Anyways, now I am back in Provo trying to find a place to live. Brandon and I have three weeks to find a place for the fall, and for married couples, that is pretty hard.

Animals and the Grand Tetons

Brandon and I finally made it out to the Tetons this weekend. On Friday we did a nice five-mile hike around Jenny Lake. On Saturday, we hiked up to some alpine lakes. What I thought would be a short hike was actually a 10-mile round trip hike. It just about killed me. It was actually less steep and less hot than the 8-miler we did at the Grand Canyon, but unlike the Grand Canyon, it went up to 9,500 feet in elevation. It turns out that I have really bad lungs because when we got to about 8,500 feet I started getting a headache and chest pains. But I finished. Our trip was also marked by the presence of friendly animals. We saw a moose, lots of elk, a grouse, chipmunks and squirrels of all varieties, a marmut, a deer, and a snake. The only thing I didn't see was a bear. I was disappointed because I've seen a bear every time I've been to Yellowstone and once at Yosemite too. This broke my good luck streak. I saw another friendly animal at Brandon's house. I went to the garage to check if the cats had enough food and water and I found a skunk eating the cat food. I call this one frienly because she was nice enough not to spray me. The deer let us get really close. We didn't even use a zoom lens. The baby is cute.This little guy jumped on my lap because I smelled like granola bar.Surprise Lake.
The Tetons.

And mom, we took all these pictures with our new camera. It's great!

Craters of the Moon

The weekend before last Brandon and I went to Craters of the Moon National Monument. It's pretty much a bunch of extinct volcanos and lava flows. It's a pretty creepy landscape, but fun. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the inspiration for Mordor in Lord of the Rings. Here are some pictures of us having fun:on a cinder coneThe fat lipInside a lava tube

Lava flows

Plans for school!

I decided that it was time for another update on my plans for school. I am starting my third-to-last semester in September. I'm still majoring in Spanish, but my minor is now in Anthropology. I will really just be taking archaeology classes. I'll graduate next December.

Brandon has a few options for school. He could graduate in civil engineering in December and go on to a masters in engineering or architecture. Instead, he wants to finish engineering and start on a double major in geology. That would take him four extra semesters, but I think it would be well worth it, considering how much he loves geology. We just need to figure out whether he would love it as much as a carreer and a major.

Unexpected favorites

With wedding gifts, I am usually a stick-to-the-registry girl, so it surprised me to get a few awesome presents that I hadn't registered for. I am very excited to use all of these:

One great cookbook with a CD, from Bexar. Brandon will be thanking you for that, because now I can actually cook for him.

The most beautiful bowl I've ever seen, from Brianna. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it. Bexar also bought me some candleholders to match.

A slow-cooker, from Brandon's uncle. I wasn't excited about it at first, because I thought we didn't need it. Then I found some delicious recipes that I can't wait to try like chicken and shrimp jumbalaya or slow-cooked minestrone. It will also be a really easy way to cook while I'm at school during the fall and winter. Hey, I bet I could make feijoada in it, too.

One 10-cup food processor. Okay, I did register for this, but I don't know who it's from, so I want to thank them on my blog and tell them that I will be trying every salsa recipe that I can find.

Sadly, I haven't been able to use any of these things yet because in the month and a half that I've been married, I have spent a total of FIVE DAYS at my own apartment. The rest of the time, I have lived out of a suitcase, borrowing cooking supplies from the in-laws and using every excuse to get out of my spider-infested basement. I probably won't be using them anytime soon, either, because I have three weeks before coming back to Provo, and when I do, I will have to move again in another three weeks, so we are keeping everything in boxes until then. But thank you, surprise gift givers. And Ashley. I liked your non-registry gift, too.

You guys have the cutest kids

Well, my photographers LOVED Caroline and Mabel. Here are more cute pictures of them:

My car

I am posting this in hopes that my brother and sisters' teasings will get my parents to expedite the process of fixing my car situation. As everyone knows, I have a little red Corolla. In January of this year, the registration expired. Since it's registered in Texas, I can't renew the registration, and since the title isn't in my name, I can't get it registered in Idaho. It doesn't really matter that the title isn't in my name, though, because we apparently don't have a title for it. Mom and Dad realized that it was lost when they went to transfer it to Brandon and me. They said that they'll fill out some paperwork on the lost title and get a new one under my name. But I'm thinking that this will only happen when they come to the US to bail me out of prison when my car gets impounded. Luckily, the car is insured. Too bad that doesn't matter either, since I have never been sent proof of insurance. So, when a cop pulls me over for having expired registration and asks me for my proof of insurance, I will have to give him one that expired in October.

Here's something that will get them motivated. When Brandon and I go back to Provo and find a new place to live, it's likely that the place won't have much off-street parking. In that case, it will cost them $30 per day to have an unregistered car, because believe me, the police come every day, and they will give me a ticket every day until I get it fixed.

Or we could take back Brandon's Buick and leave my car with his family to sit and get snowed on all winter long. The Buick's shocks are so bad that it's like riding a roller coaster. Really fun, but according to Brandon's uncle, that car is a death trap.

Seriously. Please fix it.

Idaho (for Jennifer)

Jennifer,
Sorry about not posting lately. I have been living in an 88-year-old woman's basement and she doesn't have internet. But today I am babysitting Brandon's siblings and I therefore get free use of their computer.

It would be difficult to give an unbiased report on Idaho, since I'm living here in the summer, and it's much nicer than the freezing winter months. But surprisingly, I really like Idaho. Living in a small town doesn't bother me-- Blackfoot can provide most daily needs and if I need something else, Pocatello is only 20 minutes away. If Napoleon Dynamite gave you the impression that everyone in Idaho is a hick and owns a llama, then you actually have the right idea about life in Idaho. There are llamas. Lots of llamas. And cows and horses and goats and sheep. I live across the street from a dairy farm. It provides a nice view but when the wind kicks up, it smells like cow poop. The kids go to their neighbor's house every day to feed their chickens, dog, and calf. It's a really cute calf. I fed it once. But since I like animals and wide open spaces, it's fun for me.

Despite what I had thought, there are plenty of things to do in Idaho. Last week we went to a pool in Lava Hot Springs and I jumped off a 30-foot high dive. That wasn't as painful as bellyflopping off the 10-foot springboard, though. It knocked the wind out of me and the next morning I woke up with mysterious bruises all over my body. I also helped Brandon's little brother buy $90 of fireworks and set them off. I thought that just Brandon was a pyro, but apparently it runs in the family. Besides that, Brandon and I are planning more trips. We are going to the boobs this weekend (that's what Ryan calls the Tetons now). If I had my kayak with me, I would go to the Salmon river. It apparently has some good kayaking.

Living so close to Brandon's family has been quite a different experience. His brothers and sisters are too young to really understand marriage, so instead of thinking I'm his wife, they think I'm his sister. Last week we were at his family's house for almost three days straight. When we showed up at 11:00 AM instead of 9:00 AM, his brother got mad at us, because we should have been there earlier to do things with them. That was the morning after we got home at 11:30 the previous night. Trying to explain to him that we needed time together was useless, because to him, "time together" includes time with the entire family. On one busy day I had a bit of a meltdown. I went home and refused to do anything else that day and told Brandon that we might as well live with his family considering how much we're over there. I got over it soon enough to go golfing with his family. But we did go home early that night.

Being here has made me do some unexpected things. Suddenly I am the person telling the little kids to get the kittens off the kitchen counter and put them back in the garage. Of course, I mainly do this because Mia carries the kittens around all day and they so obviously hate it, and I am against cruelty to animals. And having them on the counter really is gross. I also get up at 7:30 to go to work with Brandon. Anyone that knows me knows that that I would never get up that early to work. But I do work. I paint handrails and help Brandon do things at the construction site. I have safety goggles and work boots and everything. Nothing but braces has ever made me feel so unattractive.

Anyways, Idaho has been a learning experience. I keep learning more about Idaho, kids, Brandon, and even myself. But the biggest thing I've learned is that you should never, ever live with your in-laws.

Addendum

These were just a few of the wedding pictures I got today. There are seriously more than 700 of them, and they all turned out really well. The photographers gave me (and anyone else) permission to print out any of the pictures, so I will put them on Snapfish. Bexar and Bethany, there are more cute pictures of your kids. There are cute pictures of everyone. I'll be putting the rest up soon!

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