I like to ride my bicycle... I like to ride my bike!!!

So. I'm not sure if anyone else can relate to this (although my guess is that they can :), but even though Jordan and I love each other a LOT, sometimes it feels like that's about all we have in common!!! And we actually have a lot in common, but there are some big ones that we definitely don't. For example, Jordan likes to spend his leisure time (yes, it is leisure for him) doing extreme sports. And you think "Oh, like he likes to exercise! That's great." No. I mean, it is great, but it's a bit more than that-- we're talking biking the Alpine Loop (3 hours), running marathons, rock climbing, snowshoeing for SIX hours, Hiking in the High Uintahs for a WEEK... you get the picture. These are wonderful hobbies. It's just that sometimes, I don't get it...? To demonstrate the confusion, here's a list of things I like to do for leisure: read books for hours, watch a good movie, go for a walk, paint for hours, go somewhere pretty or interesting and draw, go to a gallery, go to cultural events, see a play or a musical. Yep. Just about as different as they could be. And Jordan, bless him, is probably just as confused about my interests as I am about his! So, we try to compromise, and attempt interest in each other's hobbies. And I feel like we've done a pretty good job so far!

The only major glitch is that because Jord is so intense about his hobbies, and does them soooo extensively.... I would probably pass out or die if I tried to join him. And I could train, but frankly, I'd probably rather study for the GRE the rest of my life than do that. Lol. I'm just not a competitive person! So it's been interesting trying to find outdoorsy things that we can do together. And please don't get me wrong-- I do enjoy the outdoors! But as one of my good friends put it so well, there are two types of outdoors people: 1) The kind who like to be one with nature and enjoy it and 2) The kind that like to compete with nature, to explore and to conquer! This is a pretty good explanation of Jord and I's philosophies. I like camping as much as the next person, just not backpacking for a week in the mountains. Or I'd love to go romp around in the snow and sled and take a nice walk, but probably not snowshoe or hike in it for hours and hours. So. Back to the problem at hand: how to engage in and support Jordan's hobbies without wanting to kill myself? Answer: BIKING. Jordan recently has really gotten back into biking, and I thought, I can do that! At least, I could probably get into biking a liiiiittle more than casually, and meet him in the middle (i.e.: a 2-hour ride instead of 8 or something).

So. As luck would have it, when Jordan got his bike (which he actually was given as a gift from a family friend! Amazing right? It's a beautiful, well-used but very valuable road bike) UPS damaged it in the mail. Because it's carbon fiber, it's possible that the little dings it got compromised it's frame. So we received a large lump of insurance money to cover any potential costs of repair, but fortunately for us there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage! So we used some of that insurance money to buy me a new bike, to ride around with Jordan! We searched for a long time to find the right one and finally settled on a Gary Fisher "Simple City" 8-speed, which is a bit like a blend/hybrid between a road bike and a cruiser. Perfect. I want to be able to keep up with Jord, or at least try, but also have a comfortable bike that I can cruise around town with. And let me just say that I certainly have!!! It happened to be a bit more than we wanted to spend on it, so we decided to count it as a birthday/Christmas present for this year. That's okay though, cuz I probably just would've gone shopping more, and who really needs more clothes when you could have this beauty! Here she is:




The first day Jordan and I went on a beautiful 10-mile ride down the Provo River trail, reaching Utah Lake and then heading home! It was so fun to just get outside and be active together! I really enjoyed it. Since then, I've been to the grocery store (and filled up my basket with eggs, milk, ice cream, and the like-- so fun!), the library, my internship, school, rode around town dropping off fliers for my internship, and went on campus to buy our books! It's really been fun, and we get to enjoy each other and the community so much more than if we were at home watchin a movie! My conclusion: get a bike. It's super great.

hmmm

erm so that didn't work out so well. oh well, have fun reading about half of what i'll be doing ;)

Health Literacy Course

Hey all! Here's the info on the class I'll be teaching for my internship this Fall! I've been slaving away getting the class ready these last few weeks, and I am pretty excited! :)

Katie came to play!!!

So my hubby went on a week-long hike through the High Uintas with his dad and brother... and I thought "That's sad. I don't want to be alone all week..." so then I thought "Katie should come play with me that week!" And so I bamboozled my parents into letting Katie come hang with me! And then they decided they'd all come, so my parents drove out here with my sisters! Leesie went out to Vernal for the week to hang with her cousins, and my parents are here working on our townhouse and hanging with Katie and me! Yesterday we hung in the morning, laid tile at the townhouse, went to Cafe Rio, and watched "Psych." Today Katie and I slept in, I worked out, we ate breakfast, hugn with my parents, went on campus for a tour, checked into some majors Katie might like, dorked around in the bookstore, and went to see Angels & Demons! Fun right? And here's a little bit of fun we had taking pictures:









So glad she's here to keep me company! :)

Murals :)

Well, I've been a busy lady painting these murals for the Johnson fam! A bunch of posts ago I put some pictures up of Nathaniel and me-- he's the little boy with autism that I work with. Well, his mom found out I could paint okay, and commissioned me to do a bunch of fun work in her kids rooms!!! So here's the result so far-- basketball sconces, a UT Jazz Scoreboard, and an almost finished BYU Cougars football field for Nathaniel's room (he's 10), and a white picket fence with some bright fun flowers for Julia's room (she's 7). Although Nathaniel's turned out alright, I have to admit that I enjoyed painting Julia's room much more. Probably the little girl in me coming out- those flowers were way too fun to come up with!!! Not to mention I've listened to about 3 Harry Potter books while working on these-- not a bad gig, right? Well, here's the goods:

Here's the basketball sconce I painted:

The UT Jazz scoreboard (over his bed)

Soon this will say "Brigham Young" and "Cougars" in the endzones, with a big "Y" in the middle! Go Cougs!

Here's Julia's room... the lighting is bad and it was pretty messy, but this is what you see as you walk in...

On the right side of her window:

On the left side of the window:

close up...

This is on the wall to the right of her bed and window, a whole long wall of fence and flowers!

There's some more, but I think you probably got the idea. Fun stuff! :)

Bridals Round 2!

Well hello! So last Friday one of my friends (she was an EFY counselor with me, and she recently started her own floral business) called me and promptly asked, "Do you still have your wedding dress by chance?" I said that I did (I just can't bring myself to sell it), and she asked me if I could help her out. She proceeded to tell me that she had made several beautiful bridal bouquets, but the brides weren't able to follow through with their bridal picture plans, and so she had these extra bouquets and no one to take pictures with them! So I agreed to meet her the next morning, all brided-up, and take bridal pictures with her flowers! I already have some really beautiful shots from when I already got married but... you never really can have enough good-looking pictures of yourself for free, now can you? ;) So here's the result, and I must say, her flowers are gorgeous! I especially loved the blue hydrangea bouquet. Check out her blog at http://aflowerfetish.blogspot.com/.

Starvation Reservoir with the Perry Fam

Here's some pics from our great 3-day escapade up at Strawberry Reservoir with Jordan's fam last week!

Sweet tent compliments of Doug and Jolynn

Nora Boo and Aunt Kelsey :

Nora with her aunts Kelsey and Danika trying to keep her happy on the boat... (not so much success)

The happy crew :)

Just before a sweet wipeout by Cory- check out the foot that's already on the loose!

Some sweet air by Jord :)

Do they look like two little boys or what!?

Playing the family fave "Citadels" (Tanilee slept through the whole thing and still managed to win...!)

Such a good helper...

I was just really cold right here!

I like this guy.

Ha, I like this guy too, if only cuz this picture is so hilarious!!! Just kidding Doug...

Does this look the father of 9 kids, 6 of which are all grown up? Looks a tad young-ish to me...

Jordan and Carson trying to kill each other... er I mean tubing...

Then it got real stormy and we had to hide in the boat cover

Nice.

Wet and pouty.

Wet and happy.

Back out in the calm before the BIG storm...

So gorgeous! And deceptive!!!

Everyone like 2 hours later after the tents all blew away and we did packed a mass exodus in under 45 minutes!

Hooray for a great trip!

The next day we all went up to Sundance and wandered around for a bit. It was gorgeous up there and we had some fun! But I think that Nora and Blake had the most fun:

It was a great week! :)