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.