Friday Night Confusion and a Soda Bar

Friday was an interesting evening. Mostly because Andrew was making a  WAY bigger deal out of our date night than normal. And we weren't going to do anything out of the ordinary either, we were just planning on watching a movie. Yes, movies are boring and it seems like that's all we do. But this was the first weekend since school started that we didn't have demands on our time and I felt like sitting around doing not much of anything. Except eating, I always want to do that.

Andrew started the conversation by telling me that if we went on a date on Friday, his test would be extended until 8pm the following day (it was going to close at 2 originally). I don't know what you got from that, but what I heard was "I don't have to take my test until 8 tomorrow, so we can go on a date tonight". Confused, I didn't pay much attention because I personally had something else planned for Saturday afternoon. (Can't tell you what it is yet, but I'm excited. I'll have to wait for a while though because Andrew has a final next Saturday and a potential interview in Boise the Saturday following)

He continued to plan for us to go on a date on Friday and when we finally settled on getting a movie from redbox, he proceeded to try to transform our living room into a movie theater and asked if we had any popcorn. At this point I was VERY confused because normally, we watch movies on his laptop in bed because our bed is more comfy than our couch and his laptop has WAY better color than our TV. But who was I to complain about the effort he was putting forth?

As it turns out, what he had been TRYING to say earlier was that IF he went on a date on Friday and had photographic proof of it, his teacher would extend the deadline for his test until 8pm on Saturday. Good ol' BYU. =P So he was trying to make the living room photo-worthy. 

In the end we didn't do anything with the living room except put pillows on the coffee table so we could put our feet up since we can no longer fit side by side on the couch when we lay down. Something about my stomach getting in the way or something, I don't remember. =P

Instead, we went to redbox and borrowed World War Z and we went to a new place that just opened called "Pop 'n' Sweets". It's KIND of a soda bar. To be honest when I read about it on Yelp, I had more of a 1950's image in my head. They are supposed to have soda on tap and creamery ice cream to make floats. Well, they have that, but they don't have the atmosphere which was kind of sad. 

What they DO have though is more bottled sodas than I've ever seen in my life. They have an entire refrigerator dedicated to different types of root beer and another for different types of ginger ale/beer. And then they have a bunch of different kinds of sodas. I was actually pleased to see that there were only like 10 Jones sodas because you could easily claim to have like 500 different sodas and then have them all be Jones sodas. Boring.

In addition to the sodas, they have a million different kinds of candies. If you're familiar with European and Australian candies, they have those. They have some Asian candies, and they have quite a few nostalgic American candies. If you've ever been to Water 'n' Ice in Arizona, the selection of candy is quite similar.

Andrew got some Mexican candy that he used to get every time he went to visit his grandparents in Mexico and I got Crybabies bubble gum, just for old times sake (It's not as sour as I remember). Andrew got a white birch beer and I got a lemon lime soda with bitters in it. It was hard to make a decision with all the sodas (I don't even LIKE soda) but I was pleased with my choice. The whole thing was kind of pricey, coming out to 8 dollars total, but I still feel like we'd go back again. I mean, they kind of have a monopoly on sodas you can't find anywhere else. And let's face it, I'm curious.

They were still in the "getting set" up stage so there wasn't much room to sit. They DO have a bar to sit at, and there are a couple of booths which at the time were blocked by boxes of soda. But really, if you're just getting a bottled soda, it probably isn't terribly worth eating in, especially since the place is somewhat devoid of atmosphere. But it's still definitely worth trying out. And seriously, that soda that I got was soooooo good!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand that just totally turned into a restaurant review instead of a blog entry about my date. Whoops.

On the way home we picked up World War Z and chicken me is glad that we forgot to turn the lights off and were too lazy to do so after the movie started. As zombie movies go, it was incredibly tasteful. I wasn't grossed out too much, most of the gross stuff was just the zombies' eyes looked all crazy but they weren't rotting corpses and there wasn't much blood if there was any at all. I can't remember. The movie was mostly based on suspense and tension. But like I said, I'm a big chicken. And also, I am not even into zombies, I think they are lame. So the fact that I liked the movie probably says a lot.

However, it DID really get my adrenaline pumping and the fun thing about being pregnant is that what affects me, affects the baby. So, watching the movie wasn't terribly comfortable as I was frequently writhing around like a downed zombie because my baby would not sit still. So maybe zombie movies are best left to when you're NOT pregnant. The ironic thing about this being that I decided on World War Z because I decided that Les Miserables was NOT a good movie to watch in a pregnant and oft times emotional state.

Go figure.

Oh, and Andrew did get his test extended until 8pm on Saturday. His teacher also said we were cute. =P

Tired. Very Tired.

I can't REALLY, truly tell if pregnancy is finally catching up to me or if its just midterms, but I am exhausted. My family came to visit last week, which also happened to coincide with midterms (which for some reason are always scheduled right around conference, like BYU has no interest in our spiritual education). So I ended up staying up late many nights just to be able to visit with my mom and dad.

Midterms are over, thank goodness, and come Thursday I THINK I'll have time to breathe. I finished my last tests on Tuesday and then had my pre-natal class from 6:30 to 9:30. Tonight I have mutual until 8:30 and then I SWEAR it's straight to bed. I'm very, very tired. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep in on Saturday.

We didn't really go on any dates this weekend because my family was in town and we had to squeeze every free moment we had for all it was worth. Andrew and I did go to our mission reunion, which was very small this year because I guess everyone got old and graduated and moved away. :( I'm afraid this might have been our last reunion for a while as well, depending on where Andrew gets a job/goes to school.

I did discover a hilarious magazine at BYU though. Who here knew BYU had a dating magazine? I didn't. It might be new. I found it hidden away in a magazine rack in the SWKT. I picked it up because it had a huge list of date ideas (or so it said). Unfortunately the date ideas weren't really anything I hadn't thought of already but there were coupons for the BYU creamery in there so it was worth picking up. That and all the hilarious articles about how to ask people on dates, what girls and guys are thinking, and my favorite, a tutorial for guys on how to clean their apartments. Poor guys, I know some guys fit the bill but I don't think we can REALLY say they are messier than girls or even total slobs. Andrew is MUCH tidier than I am.

My absolute favorite part of that article though was the suggestion that if your couch has a rip or tear in it, cover it with a blanket to hide it. I'm not sure there are many girls in Provo that would walk into a guy's apartment and care if there was a tear in their couch because I've been in many Provo apartments, ALL the couches are old and crappy. Any girl who judges a guy on that, isn't worth his time anyhow. =P

At any rate, the magazine made me laugh.

Speaking of dates and ideas, I'm sure at some point or another all of us has looked for ideas on the internet. Pinterest is full of "dating ideas" lists. Does anyone find these helpful? It seems to me that they all have the same ideas and some of the ideas don't even sound like dates to me. Or they seem like WAY too much effort. Am I just picky or lazy? Eventually I'm going to have to stop calling catching up on Legend of Korra a date.

Girls Day

This weekend there wasn't really a planned date with Andrew. We spent time together, like always, but school is getting crazy and so our "date" was watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for my East Asia class. While we watched it, I fell asleep (which made the assignment kind of hard since I didn't really know what was going on when I woke up), and Andrew read his textbooks and studied for a test. Exciting, I know. Sometimes, that's just the way things go.

Instead, I had a "girl date" with a couple of my old roommates/honorary roommates (because we never ACTUALLY lived together).

We went to a new place in Provo called "The Choc'late Mousse". It's a pie bar. They have various mousse fillings for pies and you choose your crust and it all goes into the glass of your choice (wine glass, parfait glass, shot glass, etc). For some reason I find it really hard to explain every time I'm called upon to do so. That being the case, I'm just going to stop.

I got pumpkin and cheesecake. I like the cheesecake better than the pumpkin.

We had a lot of fun just talking...about adult stuff. Weird. We touched on politics, a broken education system, job interviews, kids, etc. What the weird? We're all grown up and stuff! But we talked for like 2 hours straight! When we left, I had like 3 messages from Andrew.

I guess he missed me. =P

Andrew also started interviewing for jobs this last week. He had a couple, one which was in Lehi and one for a company in Boise. Haven't heard back from anyone, which is ok since we've got plenty of time and we're still trying to figure out what we want to do. But even though I'm tired of Provo, at the prospect of leaving Utah I started to freak out. I blame hormones.

But really, I CAN'T leave Utah. I haven't made the most of living here yet!

Speaking of making the most of living here, the Government shut down this week so all National Parks are closed. I'm glad we went to Arches a couple weeks ago!

Best Husband Ever

Well, this weekend was my birthday. Since we don't have much money and school has started so we don't have a lot of time (unless you count all the time I waste on Facebook lately because I have really bad senioritis) I tried not to talk about my birthday much so Andrew wouldn't feel pressured to do much.

I was ever so surprised when he informed me that we were going to take a trip to Arches National Park and to the Green River Watermelon Festival!

We left early Saturday morning and drove down to Arches. It's only 3 hours away! We got there at 9. We made the hike to Delicate Arch and also hiked to Landscape Arch before we decided were were beat and it was time to head to the festival. I will DEFINITELY be going back to Arches though. It was absolutely amazing! We want to take the guided hike through the slot canyons but you have to sign up for it like 4 months in advance.

The watermelon festival was worth everything it took to get there. Green River is a little dying recreation town with nothing really to speak for it except the watermelons. I'd always heard Green River watermelons were amazing, but I wanted to try for myself. I didn't HAVE to go to Green River to get one, they sell them at roadside stands around here, but I figured it might be fun to go.

I had given up hope of going due to the intense outflow of money that happens every year just before my birthday due to school starting. So I was super excited when Andrew said we were going.

We didn't spend much time there. Just enough to eat food and relax after a long day of hiking. But the watermelon was more amazing than I had imagined was possible. I've never had a watermelon that I couldn't control the dripping juices but it was so juicy it just ran down my arms and face in a continual stream. And it made me so sticky! It was sooooooo sweet and delicious. I kept going back for more! (why not? It was free!)

I swear those watermelons weighed about 15 pounds each, at least!

We bought two watermelons to bring home. They weren't AS good as the ones at the festival, probably because they were already a day old and I hear watermelons start to lose flavor about two days after they are picked. But it was still really yummy. I'm still glad we made the trek to get them fresh at Green River though.

thank goodness it will be a while before this little girl is the size of this watermelon...this was the smaller of the two we bought.

All in all, it was the best day ever and I'm SO glad Andrew took me. We had so much fun!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been VERY busy lately and I would like to just volunteer the information that I am exhausted! I even started my third trimester and the day nearly passed before I noticed (which was weird only because thanks to my phone, I usually know first thing in the morning when a new week or trimester has started).

As a result, this milestone passed with less fanfare than 20 weeks. Not that I had anything planned anyhow.

Surprisingly (or not surprisingly) it is not pregnancy that has made me so tired lately. Well, aside from the part where I don't sleep without waking up about 4 or 5 times at night anymore, that makes me tired.

It's not even school starting that has made me tired. To be honest that has been relatively relaxing and it's been nice to be out of the house all day since I worked until noon over the summer and then sat around watching Netflix for the rest of the day.

It's church that is making me tired. I'm convinced that besides the bishop, youth callings are the most busy callings there are. There are so many activities to plan and attend! I can't really complain too much, it's tiring but I really love my calling. Part of it is probably because the YW president just oozes gratefulness for all of us. She's really good at that and so I always feel like I'm really making a difference in Young Women's.

But in addition to Young Women's, we also had stake conference this last weekend. The whole of stake conference meant a special stake temple session on Friday night that ended up lasting 4 hours (The temple was REALLY crowded that night, and our stake probably didn't help), the adult session Saturday afternoon, the youth session at 8am Sunday morning and then finally the general session.

There was a priesthood session too but obviously I didn't attend that, I went grocery shopping.

We also volunteered at the MTC like usual on Saturdays so it made a very packed Saturday indeed. Coupled with game traffic, monster thunderstorms that soak you through in 5 seconds necessitating a change of clothes before going to the MTC, and traffic due to power outages on the road you take to AVOID game traffic, we ended up being an hour late to the MTC. =P But I guess most people didn't even show up because their basements were flooding.

Oh and then I had a YW meeting on Sunday.

I hope reading all that made you as tired as it made us. We ended up counting the temple as our date last week, but that's not a bad thing.

Somehow, since last weekend, I haven't managed to sneak in a nap and here I am at the school library writing this blog instead of taking a nap. We have a ward party tonight and then I SWEAR, it's off to bed.

The good news is that school is started. I just got cleared for graduation as long as I finish my coursework and said coursework SEEMS to be spread out evenly enough that I can get a little bit ahead and hopefully finish before I have the baby.

Speaking of baby, we had another ultrasound (sometimes it is nice to be higher risk)and she was a little more cooperative this time. We saw her little alien face at least. (yes...I just called my child an alien)

Going back to the good news of school I find once again that geography classes are awesome! I've mentioned before but they come with built in dates! :) I have to write a restaurant review for an East Asian restaurant (Chinese, Japanese, or Korean), a movie review for an Asian film, go to several urban spaces throughout the semester (parks, libraries, wherever), and take a self guided "field trip" to anywhere in Utah that we choose. If we have time (and money) Andrew and I are going to try to go to Arches National Park or something. It's only 2 hours away! I couldn't believe it! I always thought it was further!

The restaurant review is due Monday so on Saturday we're going with a couple of friends to a place in Salt Lake to eat Dim Sum. I'm super excited because I haven't had Dim Sum since before my mission! The requirements for the assignment are that I try something I haven't before. Hard to do when you served a mission in Japan and grew up in a Hawaiian-Chinese household.

Most of what I haven't had before (that you can get at a restaurant in America) is because it was fish or it was just too gross for me to try it (chicken feet). I could go to a Korean place...but I don't like Korean food. I've tried 3 or 4 things and I didn't like any of them so I wanted to go some place I would enjoy. So we'll see what I try at Dim Sum...I might have to suck it up and try chickens feet. I'm not entirely sure the time for trying things that make you gag just thinking of them is when you're pregnant...but oooooooooooh well. At least I'll have sesame balls to wash it down with. :)

A Passing From Pseudo-Adulthood to Full Fledged "Now I Understand Everything They Taught Me in the Marriage Prep" Adulthood

Andrew and I have been married for a little over 2 and half years. We're expecting a baby in just a couple months here (WHAT!?) and school is finally winding down. We've had dinner together every night since we've been married (even if sometimes it's at 10pm). We've had it easy so far but I've been feeling a sense of urgency lately as we're about to transition from student life to real life (kinda...Andrew is still going to go to school for at least another 4 years).

But I realized this weekend that we've already crossed the threshold between "pseudo-adulthood" and what I feel is "real-adulthood". Or maybe we're in that weird transition zone that makes it all worse, I don't know.

Anyhow, it's our new callings that have thrown us into this whirl of craziness. Andrew was called as first counselor in the Elder's Quorum a while back. This being the prime month of transition for our ward (moving-season) he's been in presidency meeting after presidency meeting and of COURSE, he's been called on last minute a few times to engage in service projects like helping people move. I've been accompanying him to most service projects. I carry lightweight boxes and stuff when people move, it hasn't been bad and it's a good opportunity to serve together.

However, I was recently called as the secretary in the Young Women's presidency. Overwhelmed is a pretty good way to describe the new calling. I went to mutual on Wednesday and smiled and nodded when the girls told me excitedly that they were going to the "One Direction" movie on Friday. Ha, like I even know what that is. =P Ok I actually do but only because I know one of them dated Taylor Swift and I only know that because like a boring old person, I read the news. It's not like I listen to music.

But besides all that, I just got the stake calendar and realized just how busy this calling is going to be. I'm sure that youth callings are the most busy callings in the church between all the devotionals, activities, and regular Sunday lessons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm overwhelmed but also excited about this new calling. However, between it, school, getting ready for the baby, and just keeping the house under control in general (hahaha, yeah that doesn't happen over the semester even when I'm NOT pregnant and in YW, but one can dream), I think it's safe to say that I've reached that point in my marriage where Andrew and I will be so busy with our callings that we will hardly see each other. I now understand how important date nights will be because we won't see each other hardly ever.

And so, all those lessons in marriage prep are coming back to me full force and I'm glad I SORTA kinda brought back date nights (We went and saw Pacific Rim on Friday, by the way), and we're still working together on everything else they taught us was important in marriage prep including temple attendance, FHE (still kinda failing at that), family scriptures, etc. The only difference is now is that I understand just how important it all really is.

I know there are some people that experience this transition MUCH earlier in marriage, like I said, Andrew and I enjoyed 2 and a half years of being always together. It's just a crazy feeling to know that that is coming to an end.

Holding Down the Fort

This week's date was more of a success than the past few weeks...sort of. It has been wonderfully gray and rainy all week and it was actually somewhat cold on Friday, or it seemed that way. After sitting in the house for a little while with the fan off, I realized it wasn't actually that cold. =P

Anyway, I decided that for our date, we were going to built a blanket fort and fill it with pillows and watch Foyle's War. It's our favorite show lately. :)

Things got off to a rocky start when we realized that our sheets and blankets weren't as big as our plans for our fort. Also, stacking stools on top of each other is generally unstable and not advisable. In the end we used our big kid skills to basically sew our fort to the ceiling. The middle was hanging low so we looped some thread through it and strung it up by the ceiling fan. =P

Also, before we came up with the idea for the thread, my back started to hurt pretty badly so I didn't feel like helping anymore, which also made things less fun.

Eventually, we got the fort set up and got Andrew's computer set up inside of it. We watched two episodes of Foyle's War before we decided to pack everything up. 2 Episodes is about 3 hours so we were in there for a decent amount of time. I was going to pop popcorn and grab some snacks and drinks too...but I never got around to it.

I think the next time I do this activity, it will be when I'm not pregnant because my back was sore to begin with and my hips just aren't used to the extra weight. I think my hip went numb halfway through the first episode. The floor just isn't that comfortable, even with all the pillows and blankets in the house.

On the other hand, if I DO choose to do something like this again while I'm pregnant, I'll probably do something more like this:

It was still fun though. :)

Also in happenings this week, Andrew went waterskiing and I got sunburned (even though I was in the shade the whole day...augh!).