Forever Young

Rogers Family Pictures

2012-01-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

On Friday we went to a place in Lehi called Camera Shy and had pictures taken with my family. They were nice and let us take more picture combinations than we were technically supposed to.. a lot more. I think they turned out pretty good so long as I ignore the fact that my body shows that I had a baby less than 3 months ago. Here are a bunch of my favorites.

4 year Anniversary

2011-12-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

2007

We got married 4 years ago today. It feels like we have been together for a lot longer than that (in a good way). In the 4th year of our marriage a lot changed. We moved, McKay started doing a new job at work, I got pregnant and we had a baby. The baby was probably the biggest change, but even though she physically keeps us a part at times, I feel like she has brought us closer together. I feel so lucky to be married to such an amazing guy. First, He works really hard to provide for us. Even when he is not a fan of what is going on at his job, he seems to remember why he has to keep working. He is also super thoughtful and sweet and is a good listener. He is my favorite person in the world to talk to, and he always listens, even if i ramble on longer than he would prefer. He is also incredibly supportive of me. I would not be able to do this new mom stuff so well without his love and support. I will always be so grateful that he is willing to work solo to provide for our family and allow me to be a stay at home mom. I will also always be grateful for the words of encouragement and praise he gives me regarding motherhood. Thank you McKay. I have loved the last 4 years being married to you and being your best friend and I look forward to many many more.

2011

Our Little Christmas Present

2011-12-21T20:34:00.000-08:00

This week Foto Fly was doing a really fun promotion at Thanksgiving point. They had photo sessions with Santa in studio at Thanksgiving point. They also had it set up so that the parents could dress up as Santa Claus so that their kids would not be afraid, or you could use their hired Santa. We used the hired Santa because Madelynn is no where near old enough to be afraid of strangers. For $20 you got a 5-10 minute photo shoot and all the photos from your session to take home on a flash drive. My mom signed us up and paid for it as a little Christmas present for us and her (she ordered some of the prints). Here are some of the pictures we got.

Madelynn's 1 Month Pictures

2011-12-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

It seems like this blog is pretty much going to become devoted to our little princess. It is really hard to think of anything else to write about because right now our lives (mine especially) revolve completely around her. I am a little late in posting this seeing as how Madelynn is actually 6 weeks old today, but her 1 month pictures are super cute just like her. McKay took them and I think he did a pretty good job!

A little bit about Madelynn at one month old... She really likes to look at lights. We catch her staring at the light fixtures on the ceiling, lamps, the television, the computer screen and most recently the Christmas lights we have around the house. She does not seem to really like to take baths, but we have found the she seems to enjoy taking a shower with mom or dad. I guess it is the constant warmth that being under a shower head brings. She also has to have her hands and arms free. If we try to wrap her arms in her blanket she will scream at us. She has to be able to wave those cute little arms around or she is not a happy baby. She likes to lift up her head and look around but doesn't like to do so on her tummy. She outgrew her newborn size clothes at about 4 1/2 weeks old and has moved into the 0-3 month size. She does not like to have her clothes changed, which is too bad for her because I like to dress her up like a baby doll. She is my living baby doll and just has to deal with changing into a new outfit if she makes one messy at all, or I just feel like changing her. She is getting a little better at sleeping during the night, she just seems to think that night time doesn't start until some where between 1 and 2 a.m.

Now enjoy an overload of pictures. I had a hard time picking through them so you get to see way too many.

Baby's First Bumbo

2011-12-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

While McKay was at work this week I got a little bored and Madelynn got a little fussy, so even though she is still a little small for it I decided to introduce Madelynn to her Bumbo.

She has been doing pretty good at holding her head up, but as you can see in the pictures she is not quite sure if she likes it yet. Fan or not, it was really cute and funny to watch her try and hold herself up.

2 week appointment and "single" parenting

2011-11-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

Madelynn just had her two week appointment, and I just had my first outing with a baby and no husband to help. I think I was spoiled having McKay home for 2 weeks of paternity leave. Now that he is gone, everything is harder! Even just getting her into her car seat and out to the car is more difficult with only one pair of hands. McKay, I miss you. I am glad you are out there being a great provider, but gosh dang it, I need your extra pair of hands so I can lock the front door behind me when I leave the house!

So Madelynn was a stinker at her appointment with the pediatrician. She screamed basically the whole time. I was amazed at how hard it was just to fill out the new patient forms while trying, without success, to make her stop crying. She cried when they weighed her and measured her and listened to her heartbeat. She cried even harder when they poked her heel and bled her for the PKU test. The poor nurse felt sooooo bad the whole time. Luckily when it was all over and she was back in her warm clothes and blankets I was able to calm her down enough to finish filling out the paper work. However, the doctor informed me that I needed to start cleaning out her belly button with rubbing alcohol. Guess who doesn't have rubbing alcohol in the house? So we got to take a quick trip to the grocery store. Juggling a car seat, purse and grocery bags is not easy. I have so much more respect for all the mom's I see in the stores carrying around their kids and getting their errands done. I can tell this is going to take some getting used to.

Back to the two week appointment... The doctor was very pleased with Madelynn's growth. She has gained almost a whole pound and has grown an entire inch. It blows my mind that she has grown that much in just two weeks!

Hungry baby...

2011-11-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

Madelynn was really hungry the other day...but she tried to get her dinner from her dad. Not super effective, but soooooo funny!

Birth Announcement

2011-11-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my wonderful friend Kayli for taking the pictures for Madelynn's birth announcement. I had a whole lot of fun putting it together in photoshop.

Madelynn Dawn Young

2011-11-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

On October 31st at 12:42 p.m. our sweet little baby girl was born after 36 hours of labor. She was 7 pounds 15 ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long. I can't believe she is a week old now. It has gone by fast, but it also feels like she has been a part of our lives forever. The love a parent can feel for a child amazes me. We love our little Madelynn sooooooo much. We also think she is just about the prettiest little girl in the whole wide world.

September and October Recap

2011-11-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

The months of September and October felt like they crawled by incredibly slowly at the time, but in hindsight they flew right by. We started off the month of September with what we like to call our "Engagement Anniversary". McKay proposed to me on Memorial day on purpose, so that we could always have a day to celebrate in the years to come. So this Memorial day we celebrated 4 years by going up to Draper to go shopping for a new couch. We ended up finding the perfect one up at furniture row across from Ikea. Since it was memorial day weekend it was on sale, and it happened to perfectly match the rocker recliner we bought for the nursery a few weeks earlier. We planned on having lunch at Sweet Tomatoes in Salt Lake, but by the time we had purchased our couch it was only 10 in the morning and we were not hungry yet. So, we decided to head up to Snowbird and attend Octoberfest. I have never been to Octoberfest before, and we probably wouldn't have gone that day either, except for the fact that McKay's sisters and our niece were up there selling their amazing kettle corn and we wanted to visit them. After a few hours of experiencing octoberfest with our cute niece, we were ready to eat, and finished up our day by having dinner at sweet tomatoes instead of lunch. It was a good day.

On the 17th of September we had our baby shower. Kayli, Rachel and my mom were awesome at getting things put together and I think the shower was a success. There were sooooo many people there and we received a whole bunch of thoughtful gifts. Thank you everyone who was in attendance! It was a special day.

Now I am going to jump to October.

We enjoyed the fall colors by taking multiple canyon drives. We drove both the Alpine loop and the Nebo loop. We also went up Rock Canyon and took advantage of the gorgeous backdrop by taking a few maternity pictures.

On October 21st we celebrated McKay's birthday. My handsome husband is now 28 years old!

It was kind of a funny day. I had fully expected to either have a baby or be in labor by the time McKay's birthday came around because I had started to dilate about 3 weeks before, so I got everything ready for his birthday weeks in advance. It was the most prepared I have ever been for his birthday! I had all of his presents pre-wrapped and stashed in various places around the apartment. We celebrated his birthday by going to a doctors appointment in the morning where they stripped my membranes to try and get me to go into labor. After that we did what we thought would be some last minute shopping for baby items, and then a really really long walk to try and jump start my labor. That evening we had McKay's birthday dinner at Kohinoor, a really tasty Indian restaurant here in Orem. Surprisingly enough my entire family showed up and even liked the food (except Jonathan, he didn't like it). We were really worried about them not liking the food, but it ended up not being a problem. Later that evening we had birthday cake and ice cream at our apartment with our good friend Kaimii and some of McKay's family. I got extra fancy with McKay's cake this year. I decorated the entire cake with home made gummies. Anyone who knows McKay knows that gummy candies are his absolute favorite, and that he likes cowboy stuff. So I had fun making him home made gummy cowboy boots and a gun. Happy 28th birthday McKay!

On Sunday the 23rd we carved pumpkins with the Rogers family. We made some fun pumpkins, but never actually ended up putting candles in them...

Halloween was interesting this year. We had 3 Halloween parties to go to. Seeing as how my due date was October 29th I did not plan a costume, then when Friday the 28th rolled around and there were no signs of labor I decided I should find a costume to wear to the various parties the next day. I ended up being a hula girl because it fit, and McKay went with his classic cowboy attire. We went to the young family Halloween party at McKay's moms house on Friday and celebrated with the nieces and nephews. Little kids make Halloween so much more fun. On Saturday we started the evening at a party up in salt lake with McKay's co-workers and then made our way down to Provo to end the night at the Christensen's Halloween party. They were all a whole lot of fun. I was so glad that we got to celebrate Halloween with those parties, because just a few hours after we got home from the Christensen's party, we went into labor...and the results of that will be a whole different post.

I heart black

2011-09-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

I know this post is random but while getting ready for the day I realized that from the from the front, the color black makes pregnant me look awesome! It camouflages my giant belly wonderfully from the front and the back. When I turn to the side there is no hope in hiding my giant belly, but while I was getting ready in the morning and viewing myself in the mirror, I felt good! I am going to have to pick up another black shirt or two so I can feel a little bit skinnier on those days that I feel like a pregnant whale. Thank you black, and all your size masking abilities!

July 2011

2011-08-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

The month of July was very eventful for us. We celebrated the fourth of July with the traditional Provo early morning hot air balloons and then the stadium of fire. We also celebrated a bunch of family birthdays. My brother had his 18th birthday, our twin nieces had their 8th birthday, our nephew had his 5th birthday, and McKay's mom had a birthday in which she turned older. McKay's sisters came out to visit from Colorado and Illinois over the weekend that our twin nieces were baptized, so we got to spend a lot of time with the Young's.

Me and Jonathan on his 18th birthday

McKay's sister Cecily's family (we had just introduced them to Angry Birds)

I was lucky enough to go spend a day in Cedar City with my extended family and attend the Shakespearean festival and my cousin Rebecca's bridal shower. It was only one day, but it was a busy, family filled day.

The Miner Family in front of SUU

We were also lucky enough to have some of my old college roommates over for dinner and games before Keri moves to Indiana for grad school. We had fun eating, playing some intense games of pit and clue, and holding baby Adelle.

Mary, Keri and Me

Mary holding baby Adelle

During the month of July our baby also got bigger and in turn I got a little fatter. I had to take the yucky glucose test and get tested for anemia. Luckily the month of July also brought us the results that I do not have gestational diabetes or an iron deficiency (yet). The end of the month also found me starting to get a little bit nervous as i realized that our baby would be here in less than 3 months! 3 months seemed like a long ways away until just recently. We also bought a crib and got it set up so that I could feel like we actually had a place to bring baby home to.

25 weeks!

McKay finishing up the crib

July went by really fast, but we had a lot of fun.

Life since April

2011-07-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

We have been really busy these last 4 months. That isn't really an excuse for not blogging because I check other peoples blogs at least weekly, I just haven't gotten around to writing on my own. So since we found out we were pregnant we have had a couple of fun things transpire. We went on the Rogers family annual vacation to Ft. Myers Florida in April. In June My baby brother Jonathan graduated from high school while simultaneously graduating with his associates degree from UVU, and I taught my very last preschool class and entered the world of the unemployed.We also moved from our little apartment/house in American Fork into a much more spacious condo in Orem. Then on June 17th we found out that we were having a little girl and decided to name her Madelynn (unless we change our mind sometime in between now and when we actually meet her). We also celebrated McKay's first fathers day. Even though the baby is only half baked we decided it counted. In between these things McKay has been working his way up the corporate ladder at Fidelty. He is loving his job. He loves the people that he works with and is doing really well there. He has already had a promotion and two pay raises. Yay for more money! I have been what McKay calls wife sick. Wife sicks is also known as morning sickness that lasts 24 hours a day. Because of that I have not been up to anything very exciting for the last few months. I am now going to talk about my battle with morning sickness, so if you don't want to read about it, stop now.

For the first two weeks that I knew I was pregnant I felt grand! I felt just a little bit nauseous and headachey, like i did before i miscarried last fall, so that is what I thought I would be up against for this pregnancy. Boy was I wrong. The day that i hit six weeks pregnant I felt like I had caught an intense flu bug and started throwing up anywhere from 6-10 times a day. If i ate anything at all it would come right back up within half an hour. And quite frequently if I drank anything it would come right back up. After about a week and a half of that my doctor put me on medication and that curbed my vomiting to only 3-5 times a day. That meant that I would keep down my food for a few hours before it would come back up, and that I could usually keep drinks down. Then when I went to Florida my body decided to be nice to me and I only threw up a handful of times that whole week! But the second we came home and the puking resumed. Then I hit 15 weeks, the point by which most pregnant people who experience morning sickness are totally done with it, and my puking subsided to only 2-3 times a day. That meant I could usually keep my last meal of the day down. I would eat at about 8:00 or 8:30 and then promptly climb into bed so I could try and sleep through the ensuing nausea and let my body actually get some nutrients. Then at about 20 weeks (when we moved) I started only throwing up every few days. I still feel nauseous everyday, but now my vomiting is only triggered by over exertion, lack of sleep, too much dairy (I think I might be a little lactose intolerant), having too much food or water in me or not enough food or water in me. And then occasionally a yucky smell (or a particularly nasty burp emitted by my husband) will send me running to the toilet. But for the most part those are things I can kind of control. I am proud to say that it has almost been a full week since I have thrown up! That may be way more than some people want to know, but that has been my life for the last 5+ months. I spent the better part of 4 months sleeping or laying on the couch watching T.V. until I had to eat, go to the bathroom or teach preschool. That is why I haven't had much to blog about. Luckily, because the sickness has subsided a great deal I am starting to feel a lot more like a human, and unless I am having one of my really bad days, I can actually do some stuff! And, since I am keeping most of my food down now, I have stopped losing weight. I lost about 8 pounds in the first half of my pregnancy, but at 25 weeks I think I have almost put those 8 pounds back on. Yay for eating food and being able to digest it! I seriously envy the pregnant women who don't get morning sickness, and I also envy the "normal" pregnant people who have morning sickness that clears up around 12-15 weeks. I hope my next pregnancies can be like that!

Well that about sums it up for now. Here are some of the pictures of our recent happenings.

In Ft. Myers on the Caloosahatchee river.

McKay getting in touch with his inner Alligator at The Shell Factory.

Boating in the Gulf of Mexico!

The Rogers cousins and my grandparents. None of the male cousins could come this year, so McKay was all alone (which I am pretty sure he was fine with).

Jonathan's Graduation

My sweet preschool class. They were a handful, but I miss them.

Some of my coworkers from John Hancock Charter School. I miss them too.

McKay's first fathers day. His sisters were sweet and got him a cute little onesie that says, "daddy's little princess". That will very much apply once this little girl is born.

Our last day at our American Fork apartment. Goodbye 17th ward. We will miss you!

Baby Young

2011-04-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

So... we are pregnant!

We are going to have a baby Young or a young baby, whichever way you want to put it. We are due October 29th. Since McKay's Birthday is October 21st he wants the baby to either come on his actual birthday, or as far away from it as possible. We'll see how that works out. We are only 10 weeks and change along, but this pregnancy feels like it is taking FOREVER! We pretty much knew we were pregnant immediately, so I have felt pregnant since the beginning of February. Since we had the miscarriage in November I had already experienced early pregnancy symptoms and was recognizing them almost immediately. We found out for sure on February 19th. It was technically the first day that we could find out whether or not we were pregnant, and I told myself we would wait longer, but I felt so sick, and so sure I was pregnant I just wanted to get the test over with. Needless to say, it was positive. As were the tests we took after that.

We decided to wait a little while longer to announce this pregnancy because we had just experienced a miscarriage and now realize how delicate that little life really is. We decided we would wait to tell people until we had our doctors appointment and saw that everything was ok. We had an early ultrasound at 7 weeks just to make sure the baby was growing like it should and that it had a heart beat. The last baby didn't have one of those, so when the hooked me up to the Doppler thing and I heard the baby's fast little heart beat I started laughing and crying at the same time. It was amazing. I am so excited for McKay to be able to hear it's heartbeat at our next appointment later this month.

7 week ultrasound along with Baby's heartbeat

We had our regular first pregnancy appointment at 9 1/2 weeks. So far everything looks good. The doctor said that the baby is measuring 3-4 days smaller than expected, but that is not enough to change the due date, so we are still on track for October 29th for now.

9 1/2 week ultrasound. Our baby looks like an upside down bug!

We are so excited to be parents (and also a little nervous) and feel so blessed to have the opportunity to start our little family. We both hope to have a girl first, but I keep feeling like it will be a little boy, so we will see what happens!

4 weeks, and soooo excited!

10 weeks, and sooooo bloated!

We decided we should do stuff....

2011-02-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

McKay and I decided we want to do more fun things with our time. We always have things we say we want to do, but unless we actually sit down and plan it out they never happen. So that is what we are doing now, we are planning things out. We made an extremely awesome personalized calendar on Costco.com and when we got it in the mail we sat down and had a major planning meeting. We sat down for like 2 hours and wrote down the things we wanted to do or see and tried to find times in the next few months that we could do them. Now our calendar is filled with things to do with our free time. We have already done a few things on our calendar list, and they have been really fun.

First, we took a day and went down to the BYU Museum of Art and the Bean Life Science Museum. We have both been there before, but the last time either of us had been to them was before we graduated, and that is over a year and a half ago! It was really fun to see both museums with fresh eyes. It made for a nice day out.

Us with a nicely stuffed Black Bear.

I know I look way tired in this picture, ignore that.

Second, on Saturday we headed back down to BYU to watch the Gymnastics meet. It was sooooo much fun! When I was a little girl my family had season tickets to SUU's Gymnastics, so being there on saturday brought back happy memories, especially because BYU was competing against SUU (along with Utah State and Iowa State). We had awesome seats and I am so glad we shelled out the $10 to go. It was well worth it. Those Gymnasts are amazing. Since McKay and I are both failed Gymnasts so we could really appreciate their skill (Our bodies just aren't built for gymnastics, we are too tall and way too bottom heavy. Luckily I found this out much earlier in life than McKay did.)

SUU and BYU

Third, we went out for a nice long walk near Utah lake. It was a beautiful day. It was cold of course, but it was sunny and we discovered a new path along the river that was absolutely stunning. We will be returning frequently as the weather warms up. One of the coolest things we saw on our walk was a broken water valve that was spewing water and had frozen on all the trees and bushes around it. It looked really cool. If it was warmer I would have wanted to play in it. Who am I kidding, I wanted to play in it, but my better judgement told me NO!

Fourth, we had some of our new favorite people over for dessert on Sunday night. Since moving into this new ward last summer the Geetings have wormed their way into our hearts. It was really fun to have them over and to have a reason to bake a tasty treat. I have felt sugar deprived during these last few weeks of dieting.

It is always fun when one of the geetings little boys are around, and Sunday was no exception. Audrey, thank you for letting me feed you and your family. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Last night we got to go up to Salt Lake with my family and have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my baby sisters 14th birthday. She is getting SO BIG! I love being with my family, even though my sisters tend to invite major drama with them wherever they go. Happy Birthday Jessica. I love you to pieces.

The Rogers Family

Jessica

The super cool zebra cake I made Jessica

That is all for now. McKay is working 20-25 hours of overtime each week so we only get to do fun things on the weekends.

Actually keeping a New Years resolution!

2011-01-27T00:24:00.000-08:00

So, this year, one of our resolutions (along with a million other people I am sure) was to loose weight and get in better shape. However, this year, unlike any other, I have extra motivation to do so. I have had almost a trimesters worth of pregnancy weight hanging onto my body because of my miscarriage, and then add some holiday weight on top of that. Well, I want to be a mom as soon as possible, but I have also wanted to get rid of that extra weight and get my body back to where it was before my miscarriage, because otherwise I would have ended my next pregnancy with almost 3 extra months worth of pregnancy weight. YUCK. So I joined Weight Watchers with my mom and have been hitting the diet and exercise thing pretty hard for about 2 weeks, and I have lost 10 pounds! Can you believe that!?! 10 freaking pounds in 2 weeks. I guess my body really wanted that baby weight to go away, because it has been very cooperative. McKay has also lost that much (and maybe even a pound or two more) in two weeks. I am thrilled right now. I don't expect things to keep going that fast because A) it is not really healthy to keep losing that much weight that fast, and B) our bodies are over the initial shock of diet/exercise. I think my body is now starting to become good friends with fresh fruits and vegetables. So, here is to loosing weight just so that I can get super fat again. YAY!

Sorry if this post is a little bit scatterbrained, it is after 1:00 a.m. and I am really, really, really tired, but my brain will not shut up and let me sleep. On the plus side, I am having lots of good crafty ideas. Tomorrow I am going to make something really pretty. Be prepared!

The Holidays! 2010

2011-01-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

November and December were busy months for us. We had a lot of big events, and I am going to post a little blurb about each of them in this post.

First, we found out we were pregnant in October so we got really excited about being parents, and I got really, really tired and sick.

Second, the week before thanksgiving we were lucky enough to go out to California to attend McKay's cousin Dekan's wedding. McKay was a groomsman, so we were involved in all of the wedding events. McKay and Dekan's mom's come from the Dunbar clan so, for the wedding rehearsal, Nicci and Ilse made the most gorgeous kilts for the boys to wear, in the authentic Dunbar tartan. The kilts were a surprise, and everyone got a kick out of them.

The Rehearsal dinner was really relaxed. We went to a fancy Pizza Place and took over their back patio. It was really fun to see some of McKay's extended family that we haven't seen in a long time and to meet other family members that I had never met.

The actual ceremony was beautiful, but long. I had never been to a catholic wedding before, but it was nice. And the place that they got married had large windows that looked out over the ocean, so the whole time we were watching the ceremony we could also see the ocean behind them. I'm sure the location made for gorgeous wedding pictures.

The Reception was awesome. I don't think I have ever had food that good and that plentiful at a reception before. The Physical atmosphere was also gorgeous. It also made it fun that we rode there in a limo-bus. There was a lot of dancing. It was really entertaining to watch some of the tipsy bridesmaids bust it out on the dance floor, especially when they were dancing with my little nephew Benjamin who is in 1st grade. It was really fun to be able to watch Dekan and Elyse on their wedding day as well. Dekan was soooooooo happy and excited all day.

Congratulations Dekan and Elyse!

Third, we took a little trip to the Valley of fire on our way home from California. We had a lot of fun playing on the rocks, even though it was a little colder than we expected.

Fourth, I had a birthday and turned 23! We celebrated by going to dinner at Ruby River with my family, and my uncle Allen's family, and my cousin Jackson. It was neat to have everyone together, and the food was awesome.

Fifth,we had a busy Thanksgiving. This year my extended family had Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house so we got to see my grandparents and most of my aunts, uncles and cousins. It was busy and a little bit crowded, but always nice to see everyone. I saw some of my cousins that I haven't seen in a really long time. The little girls in my family LOVE McKay and had fun playing with him.

Sixth, the first week of December we had a miscarriage. We lost the baby at 9 weeks. It was a sad week for me. Luckily as far as miscarriages go it was a pretty good one, without any complications.

Seventh, we had lots of Christmas activities. I was able to get together with some of my high school friends. We wen't out to lunch and then had fun chatting and decorating gingerbread cookies.We also got together with some of McKay's high school friends and had a big Christmas dinner.

We had a busy Christmas eve and day split between our two families. On Christmas eve we had Chinese food for dinner and then had a little talent show and lots of Christmas music. McKay picked up the guitar quite a bit over the holiday season and I really enjoyed hearing him play Christmas music on the guitar.

On Christmas morning we opened presents at my parents house. It was a really pleasant morning.

Once things died down after Lunch we wen't over to McKay's parents house for more presents and more food.

Something really funny happened on Christmas. McKay and his dad each got each other gifts, the same gifts. It was really funny to hear McKay's dad give him hints and hear McKay whisper,"it sounds like he got me the same thing I got him. Did he?" It was really hard not to tell him the answer.

Seventh, we took a trip up to temple square to see the lights, no holiday season is complete without a trip to see the lights on temple square. We almost turned around and drove back home when we go up there because it was so busy and crowded. There was some kind of performance going on at the conference center, so there was absolutely nowhere to park. I am glad we stayed because I love it up there. I have so many great memories of temple square, it's nice to be able to add to the memories.

Eighth, we celebrated our third anniversary. Yay for 3 awesome years of marriage. Sadly McKay had to work and then the restaurant we went to eat at had a ridiculously long wait, so we decided to celebrate our anniversary China Style. Last year we went to Pizza Hut in Wuhan for our 2nd anniversary, so we got pizza from pizza hut and had a great evening at home.

Ninth, we celebrated New Years Eve with my family and a fondue dinner. We celebrated new years at 10 when the ball dropped in New York and then wen't home and celebrated ourselves at Midnight.

So, Happy New Year!

And now I am caught up on the happenings of the last 2 months and don't as bad about my blog neglect.

Playing with guns by Utah Lake

2010-11-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend we had really nice weather (probably for the last time this year), so to take advantage of that we decided we would either go golfing or go shooting. We ended up choosing to go shooting because it is sooooo much cheaper. We had a little fun with this excursion and decided to recreate one of our first dates.

Back in May of 2007 a really cute boy that I had only been on one or two dates with decided to take me on a really long drive to the unpopulated side of Utah Lake. It was really hot out and his car didn't have air conditioning and my window didn't roll down all the way. I was a little bit grumpy on the hour long drive to get to the right spot to go shooting. McKay is super lucky that I grew up with my father who collects guns and has taken me shooting since I was a little girl, otherwise this kind of a date could have put an end to us. McKay was a brave boy taking girl he barely knew into the middle of nowhere to go shooting. Luckily I am the kind of girl you can do that with. Maybe that is why we ended up getting married. Anyway so on this date we had fun shooting his handful of guns and then finished the drive around the lake and had a picnic lunch/dinner in the Provo Harbor. McKay planned the whole thing so all he brought was cheese and crackers. The cheese wasn't even sliced so he whipped out his pocket knife (which was kind of dirty and grossed me out) and cut off little slices for us. We sat by the edge of the lake and talked for quite a while and had one of my most memorable dates ever.

So, fast forward 3 1/2 years and you will find us, recreating that date. The drive to the other side of the lake was much more comfortable because our car now had air conditioning and windows that roll down all the way. Plus, we know each other really well so there were no awkward silences on the drive. This time we spent even more time shooting. We were out there for close to 2 hours and it was a blast! After that we drove to the American Fork Harbor (because that is closer to where we live now) and had cheese and crackers for dinner. However, this time we pre-sliced the cheese so that no dirty pocket knife was needed. I am so lucky to have such a fun, awesome husband. We decided we will have to go shooting more often. This time we definitely won't wait 3 1/2 years to do it again.

Us in May 2007:

We look so young!

Us in November 2010:

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

We were able to start our Halloween festivities a little early. On the 23rd we had a birthday/Halloween party at our house and had a ton of fun. I made way too much food, and we ate the leftovers for the next few days!

How cute are these pumpkin cupcakes?! This is my new favorite cupcake recipe!

On the 28th McKay's work threw a Halloween party for the families of their employees. It was geared towards kids, and since we don't have any kids we borrowed two of our nieces for the afternoon. We had a fun time watching them play all of the games and get their faces painted. I laughed pretty hard when one of my nieces to the person doing the painting that she wanted to be a dead cinderella. The face painter tried to talk her into a pretty butterfly on her face, like her sister had, but it didn't work. So she got scars and blood and a skull painted on her face. You could tell the lady doing the painting was a little uncomfortable, but she obliged a very stubborn little girl (who absolutely LOVED her face paint by the way).

On the 29th I had my school Halloween party. All I can say is my preschool kids are soooooo adorable and I had a blast with them.

Luckily my mom also teaches at the same school I do, and my sister goes to school there, so we all got to hang out together for a little bit during the school costume parade.

On the 30th I delivered a wedding cake to Springville that I have been working on FOREVER, and then we went' to a family party at McKay's mom's house. We ended up getting there about 2 hours early, but we had some good time to visit with My mother in Law and McKay's aunt Ilse. After pumpkin carving, home made donuts and hot dog soup we headed to our house briefly to be there for trick-or-treaters. It was raining so hard that we didn't have to many people come by. Then we headed down to Heather and Doug's apartment in Provo. We had such a fun time at there house. Lots of good food and people. At the end of the party we were playing apple to apples and I was so tired that everything was funny and I had a minute or two where I seriously could not stop laughing. For some reason cabbage was hilarious. We went dressed up as a cowboy and an Indian. Costumes are awesome. I wish we could wear costumes every weekend.

On Sunday we had a few stragglers come trick-or-treating. Luckily we had plenty of candy left over to oblige them. All in all it was a great Halloween!

McKay's Birthday

2010-11-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

On October 21st McKay celebrated his 27th birthday. He just barely started a new job at Fidelity and had training all day, but we were able to celebrate during his lunch brake and after work. When he came home for lunch I had pizza from Pizza Hut ready and waiting for him, that has been a tradition for us since China last year. When he was done with work he opened presents and then we wen't to Macy's and bought pumpkins. Then we carved our pumpkins as we watched season 4 of Fraggle Rock (one of his birthday presents). Our pumpkins turned out pretty cool, and this is the first time we have had jack-o-lanterns at our house for Halloween!

After we finished our pumpkins we had birthday cake. It was really weird singing Happy Birthday to McKay as a solo, but I just had to sing it. For his birthday he requested a green funfetti cake with tons of sprinkles, and I delivered. He blew out one giant candle and then we ate cake!

Happy Birthday McKay, you are the coolest guy I know! I love you!

The cutest nieces and nephews ever!

2010-09-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I decided to empty a camera card that happened to be VERY full, and in the process I downloaded all of the pictures from the beginning of August when all of McKay's family was in town. We had a really fun, 2 week long, unofficial family reunion. The two weeks were very eventful. We had lobsterfest, my niece Julia's baptism, a girls only tea party and we went to the Children's Museum, Pirate Island and the swimming pool. We also spent a lot of time just hanging out at Sasha's house. (Thanks for letting your entire family take over your house for two weeks Sasha!) I had a whole lot of fun with everyone and It was great to see Marissa and Cecily's families. We miss them when they are back home in Illinois and Massachusetts. I have only known the Young family for 3 1/2 years but I have come to love them just like my own family. It is amazing to me how much I really do love all of them, especially my crazy nieces and nephews.

We took over 700 pictures during those two weeks so I can't possibly post all of them, but I have a ton of them that I would like to put up. So, from here on out there will be a whole lot of ridiculously cute pictures of my nieces and nephews, and a few of us slightly less cute adults.

Thank you for a great two weeks Young family! Marissa and Cecily, We can't wait to see you guys (and your families) again!

Camping 2010

2010-09-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

We did not get a chance to go camping at all this summer, so last weekend we decided to get ourselves into the mountains before the temperature drops too low. We were both done with work by 2:00 and were able to get up the mountain and find a campsite before dinner time. We headed up the Nebo Loop and eventually found the perfect camping spot at the end of a very twisty and bumpy dirt road. It was very secluded and we had a view of Utah valley and Utah lake through the trees. The one drawback to the campsite is that there are cows wandering around the mountain and they left some very lovely cow pies at our campsite. We were able to use some of the dry ones as fuel for our fire, but after the sun went down I ended up stepping in a fresh one. We heard a lot of elk calls as well, but we are not sure if they were hunters or actual elk. We are going to assume that we heard a mixture of both. We had a great time with just the two of us and we are thinking about doing it again next weekend!

These pictures have terrible resolution because we took them using our video camera, but I am posting them anyway!

An amazing sunset

2010-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Last night we saw the most amazing sunset. Luckily my husband is very handy with a camera and we got some gorgeous pictures, some of which we plan on printing off and hanging up on our walls.

Our cute little house

4th of Julyish

2010-07-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

We spent the 4th of July pretty split up between our two families. Saturday was devoted to the Rogers and Sunday was devoted to the Young's. It was pretty nice to be able to have an entire day dedicated to just one side of the family rather than driving back and forth between them in the same day. Saturday we woke up early and went to Provo to see the hot air balloons. We went down with my mom and met up with Kayli, Heather and Doug. It was nice to have company because we had to wait forever to see a few of the balloons take off. Only 3 or 4 took off and then they cancelled the whole thing. On Saturday afternoon we had a BBQ at my parents house and then played some games and had a Boccce Ball tournament which me and McKay won! Then some of us headed down to Provo again to go to the Freedom Festival stuff going on downtown. We had fun shopping and saw a ton of cute jewelry. That night my family went to the Stadium of Fire, so we ended up doing our own thing. We debated between going down to Provo again that night to watch the fireworks there, or go to Pleasant Grove and watch their smaller, but more convenient fireworks display. Pleasant Grove won out so we watched fireworks at Grovecrest Elementary school were it only took us 5 extra minutes to get home due to traffic.

On Sunday after church we made our way to McKay's sister Sasha's house where we celebrated the Fourth of July and our twin nieces' 7th birthday. It was a ton of fun. There were lots of people at Sasha's house like always so there was a lot to keep us entertained. We had lots of good food an birthday cake and we got to have some fun with a piñata and a lot of fireworks (most legal, some not so legal). We also had some fun playing with Sasha's dog. the boys would set off smoke bombs or little flashing fireworks in the backyard and her dog would chase them down and try to attack them. It was kind of sad to watch the dog try to stick his face in the little fireworks, but it was hilarious to watch him try to attack the smoke coming from the smoke bombs.

On Monday we headed back down to Provo again to watch the grand parade with my extended family because my uncle Boyd is crazy and brings his RV to camp out before the parade every year, so we always have really good seats right near the beginning of the parade route. After the parade we went back to my parents for lunch and to start babysitting my little sister. My parents left on a trip to California that afternoon so I got to babysit. So with Jessica in tow we went to Utah lake were we played in the water for a little while and then sat on the beach area for about an hour while we watched McKay play with his snorkeling gear. That night we were naughty and went up on my parents roof with my sisters and threw poppers and a couple of fireworks off the roof. It was pretty awesome. I think I will want to do that every year from now on. All in all it was a good weekend, but I am pretty much sick of fireworks now so I am glad they are over for a while.

Life back in the USA

2010-07-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in forever, and because of that there is a lot to catch up on. I will make it brief.

After leaving Wuhan, China we took a tour of Xian and Beijing with my parents (thanks mom and dad) and we saw some incredible things and had a great time.

The Great Wall of China

Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City

When we got home we spent a lot of time with our extended family, and then spent 2 1/2 months with McKay's super cool sister Kira, occupying her basement. We became good friends with her 2 adorable kittens while we were desperately looking for jobs.

In April, McKay and I both found jobs working for Provo College at their new American Fork Campus. McKay started working one week before me as their Career Services Coordinator, and then I came on as their Front Desk Manager. We worked long hours, made good money, and spent way too much time looking for apartments.

We finally found the perfect place to live on Center Street in American Fork. We are now the proud renters of an adorable little 2 bedroom 1 bath, yellow house across the street from a park. We moved in on May 2nd and have had a lot of fun turning it into our home.

We've also taken a few family trips since being back in the states. In April we took a trip with my family to Florida to visit the Rogers side of my family (and the beach). Then in May we took a trip to Bear Lake with McKay's family. We really enjoyed both trips. They were so different from each other, but we ended up spending time on a beach during both trips.

Eventually I had to stop working at Provo College, because Corporate decided that a husband and wife working on the same campus was a conflict of interest. So, the first week of June I cut ties with Provo College (even though I still really like them) and am searching for another job.

In the process of being unemployed I decided to take up one of my favorite hobbies and I am decorating cakes. I have also been lucky enough to start selling my cakes. I am definitely not making much money off of the cakes I sell, but I make just enough to be able to pay for my hobby. I have also started a new blog just for my cakes because I hope to turn it into a business over time.

lindsayscustomcakes.blogspot.com

So those are the major events of the last 4 months. Now that I have this post out of the way I will try to do better at blogging.

Goodbye Wuhan

2010-02-05T05:35:00.000-08:00

It is our last night here in Wuhan. Tomorrow morning we are flying to Xian and spending a week touring Xian and then Beijing. I am excited and a little bit anxious about leaving Wuhan. I am very excited to get back to the conveniences and normalcy of living in America, but I can't help but feel a small sense of loss at leaving China behind. Living in China has been really a really interesting experience. I don't think I ever want to do it again, but I am glad we have had the chance to live the last 5 1/2 months here in Wuhan. We have had some interesting life altering experiences and I am a little bit sad to see this chapter of our lives close. Oh well, were on to bigger and better things. Goodbye Wuhan!!!!!

Red Tourism

2010-01-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

This week we were able to get out of the apartment and experience the last bit of sightseeing that we could here in Wuhan.We had already been to all of the tourist attractions in Wuhan with the exception of the stone museum and Mao Zedong's Villa and the accompanying "museums". We still don't plan on going to the stone museum because the idea of looking at 2,000 + rocks doesn't thrill me like it should. So, we spent the day at Mao Zedong's old Villa and the old buildings around it.

The Villa was pretty cool. Mao used in back in the 1920's so it was neat to see how a fancy home would have been built at that time. The outside walls of the villa were extremely tall gray brick walls, and the inside walls were lacquered wood panels. We were only able to see the bedrooms and the office type area of the home because the back section and the upper loft of the villa were locked up. One thing that we have found very interesting about old buildings of interest here in china is that they always use a portion (sometimes a large portion) of the historical building for living quarters. It is quite frustrating to go to an amazing old chinese building and want to see more, but then see the bed and the chairs and the boiling water and the laundry strung across a number of the rooms. For some reason it really bothers me that they have the workers staying in and trashing these amazing old places. It seems like such a waste to me. Oh well, I don't have any say in the matter.

After going through the portion of the villa that wasn't being lived in, we visited 2 old schools, one of which was across the street from the villa and the other which was just down the street. The old school at the end of the street was used to give peasants military training right before the peasants revolt in China back in the 1920's. My knowledge of Chinese history is not very broad so that wasn't as interesting to me as the architecture and seeing the living and teaching conditions. The building used for a barracks at that military school was a beautiful European looking brick building. I found out that the England used to have quite the colony here in Wuhan, and part of the revolt at the time was kicking the British out! So once they got rid of the British they had some really pretty buildings to take over and turned them into military bases, which is what they did with the second school that we visited.The whole upper floor of the barracks building had been turned into the hall of Mao. The entire top floor was row after row after row of pictures of Mao. There was no English anywhere so I had no idea what was going on in the pictures, but some of them were interesting to see anyway.

The second school that we visited was taken over by the communist government and turned into a military headquarters. They don't use it much anymore, but they built a pretty cool museum in one of the buildings all about the rise and current reign of the communist government. They actually had some English translations in that museum, so even though there were some major translation errors, I learned more about the rise of the current Chinese government than I ever wanted to know. As we were leaving on of the schools we happened to stop at the tourist information desk and read that we were viewing some of china's "Red Tourism" and decided it is a pretty fitting name for all the tourist sites dealing with the rise of communism. I don't much care for learning about communism and reading (and then laughing at) some of this country's crazy propaganda, but it was nice to get out of the house for a day.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

Outside Mao's Villa

Inside Mao's Villa

At the school used for military training

The students barracks

McKay with the 5 founders of the Chinese Communist party

Missing Students

2010-01-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

The semester here at Wuhan University of Science and Engineering ends on January 29th, but we have been done teaching classes since the beginning of January. It has been about 3 weeks without teaching now and I am finding that I miss some of my students. The students who tried hard in class and who really wanted to improve their English are what made our move to China worth it. There were a few students who went the extra mile and tried desperately to be our friends outside of class. I am finding, and I am sure McKay is too, that I miss some of their happy faces and their broken English. Hopefully we can stay in touch with some of them over time through email. So this post is a shout out to Day, Alice, Yolanda, Stefanie, Candy, Miracle, Sharen, Amy, Carina, Molly, Rocey, Disrose, Roman, Moor and Jack Yang. You guys are the coolest and made my experience in china totally worth it.

Do you know how to use a toilet? Because Chinese people don't.

2010-01-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

One thing that I have found very interesting and very frustrating here in China is the inability to use a western style toilet properly. When I am lucky enough to find a western style toilet when I am out and about, chances are pretty good that a Chinese person used it before me, and chances are also pretty high that the person who used it was unfamiliar with how to use it correctly. It is not surprising to see an absolutely filthy public toilet here in China, or anywhere for that matter. What is surprising is seeing foot prints on the toilet seat! The Chinese people try to stand on and the rim of the toilet seat so that they can squat over it like they do their little squatty potties. Not only does it gross me out to find footprints, it amazes me. You would have to have pretty good balance to stand on the rim of a western style toilet like a chinese person. I think I would fall off. Anyway. I got a good laugh in the other day when we went to Wuhan's fancy concert hall. I had to go to the bathroom and when I went into the stall with the western style toilet I saw this lovely sign.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I absolutely love that (a) they had this sign and (b) they needed this sign. There were not any foot prints on my toilet seat that night so I guess the diagram was good enough to get the point across to the chinese folk using the restroom.

I cant wait to get back to a place where images like these are a thing of the past...

Our Second Anniversary

2009-12-31T01:33:00.000-08:00

On the 29th McKay and I celebrated our second anniversary. For our first anniversary we went on a weekend getaway to a cute bed and breakfast in Logan, this year we went to Pizza Hut. As we were on our way to dinner we were laughing about how Pizza Hut is our special occasion restaurant here in China. When we get back to the states we might have to spend an occasional birthday or holiday celebration at a Pizza Hut because of its importance in our celebrations here in China. Don't you love/hate little sentimental gestures like that? So our anniversary started out like all of our other special days here in China, we taught classes. McKay wasn't done with classes until about 4:00 so after he got home we hopped a bus down to Guanggu (the huge shopping center) and did a little bit of window shopping. We also had a really cool hairpin that McKay bought me for my birthday fixed at the little shop he bought it from. Then we had a nice long wait to get a table at pizza hut so we did some more window shopping! We saw some ridiculously cool tea sets, but decided that the chance of their making it back to America in one piece was slim to none.

After our very yummy dinner of Hawaiian stuffed crust pizza and pasta with chicken and red pepper sauce, we did more shopping. It was a nice night and everything was still colorful and lit up for Christmas/New years so we decided to enjoy the scenery and walk a couple of blocks down to our favorite little DVD store to see if they happened to have Arrested Development. We have just recently come across arrested development on Hulu. We watched the first 7 episodes online and were hooked. We were very happy to find that the store had all 3 seasons of arrested development. We ended up spending 100 yuan on movies because we came across a number of good television series for cheap! One that we bought is a National Geographic video collection. It has over 50 different shows/episodes smashed onto 4 discs. They are really good at putting a lot of video on a small amount of disc. Sometimes that means you don't always get great movie quality, but it gives you a great price! So with the shopping and the Eating and the watching of Arrested Development, we realized that even though our Anniversary was not anything super romantic and special, we were both very glad to have each other and that we have become each others best friends! That is a little cheesy, I know, but it is true. If we didn't have each others love, support and friendship to rely on we would both have gone absolutely crazy after our first month here in China. So McKay (because I know you will read this eventually), Happy anniversary! These last 2 years have been wonderful, and I look forward to many, many more wonderful years with you! And thank you for being my friend and keeping me sane with multiple games of Phase 10, Uno, and chess, as well as cold walks and late night chats. I love you tons! 我爱你

Christmas Day!

2009-12-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

Christmas was really interesting. I was expecting to have a pretty quite, uneventful (and maybe even slightly sad) Christmas without our families and the usual Christmas festivities. I was not heading into Christmas with high hopes. Luckily it was much better than I could have ever imagined it would be. We got a late start on the evening because McKay had to teach an evening class, and while the school was really nice and gave us Christmas day off, Christmas eve was not even thought of. So later that night we were able to have a quiet little dinner together in our apartment and then after made a last minute run to the store to pick up some stocking stuffers, we got online and we watched It's A Wonderful Life on youtube. That took a while to load, but it sure was worth it because my family always watches that movie on Christmas or Christmas eve, and my dad always tells us about how jimmy stewarts character is a lot like him.

After the movie was done it was about 11:30 p.m. which meant it was 8:30 a.m.back in Utah and 9:30 in Illinois where McKay's parents are. I am so glad we have Skype. It is amazing. We were able to have a nice chat with my family and McKay's family that night, and then again the next morning and the next night and then again this morning. We were able to catch the families right after their Christmas eve festivities, right after opening presents, and then after their Christmas dinner. Even though we are 14-15 hours ahead of our families, talking to them on Skype made all the difference to our Christmas. It brought in the family aspect that I felt like we were missing so much.

After talking on skype on christmas eve for over an hour, McKay (aka. Santa Claus) decided we needed to play UNO. I was soooooo tired, but I wanted to be a good, accommodating wife, so we played uno until after 1:30. Then we still had to read through the story of the nativity in the scriptures so we didn't get to sleep until really late. And then I foiled McKay's plans. For some reason I automatically wake up whenever he gets out of bed. I don't know how or why I am programmed to do that, but I always wake up when he gets up. Usually I wake up right as he is reaching for or opening the door, but on Christmas eve I caught him opening up his sock drawer to pull out his stash of christmas presents. He was a little upset that I foiled his secret plans, but I think secretly he was glad to have a reason to finally go to sleep.

On Christmas morning we exchanged gifts with each other by placing them in our stockings. Wrapping paper is a little bit more difficult to come by than we anticipated, so we just put the presents in the stockings and then pulled them out. It worked. Then we opened the presents that our students had given us. They were really funny! I got a pair of kissing fish piggy banks, some little Chinese figurines and McKay got a pink Kung-Fu baby statue. He plans on re-gifting it and giving it to someone special when we get back to the U.S.

After opening presents we watched some movies and played games together and then talked on skype until we got a call telling us we had a package across the street in the post office. McKay's mom sent us a Christmas package and it had perfect timing arriving on Christmas day!

Later that afternoon we went over to the Skaggs and watched a Charlie Brown Christmas with the other foreign teachers and then watched them exchange secret santa gifts. McKay and I wanted to do secret santa, but the person in charge was never home when we called or went over to pick a name, so since we didn't connect with him early enough they withdrew our names from secret santa. That was a little sad, but it was still fun to watch the other teachers give and receive their gifts. Thank you Rob and Jacque for letting everyone come over to your apartment. Later that evening we ended up having chicken curry and sugar cookies for Christmas dinner and then talking on skype, again, meeting my little sisters boyfriend over skype for the first time. Then we played games, watched more Christmas movies and then got a good nights sleep (by the way, we did NOT like Where the Wild Things Are). I know this has been pretty detailed blog post, but that is how we spent our Christmas here in China. It was a unique Christmas, but it was a good one.

Here are some pictures of Christmas Morning:

Christmas Prep

2009-12-21T04:07:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas time, but if you are here in China you wouldn't know it. The Chinese celebrate Christmas like Americans celebrate the day after thanksgiving. So just like Americans on black Friday, the Chinese either stay up really late or get up really early to go shopping and get some good deals. The only places that you will see any Christmas decor is at the big shopping malls where they are trying to cash in on the commercial side of Christmas. They also don't really get snow here in Wuhan, so a lack of snowy weather and a dingy gray sky make it seem even less like Christmas. I have to admit that I really wish we could see some Christmas lights right about now.

Our apartment wasn't feeling very festive either, so I decided to do what I could to change that. Since we are not allowed to publicly celebrate the religious aspect of Christmas in China we had to be a little bit careful. We have students and Chinese people over to our apartment more often than I thought we would, and it is really hard to avoid the religion issue with them. We figured having a picture of Christ and a nativity seen on the wall might raise questions, and we could get into some major trouble if we talked about it. I am really irritated with the whole religion issue here in China. I will be grateful to get back to America and talk about and live my religion whenever and wherever I want. So anyway, We have decorated with religion free decorations this year, more specifically, SNOWFLAKES! I originally only planned on putting them on our front door, but they were a great way to kill time in between classes. So I ended up cutting out about 100 snowflakes and have put them on all the doors in our house. I would like to keep going but I got a blister on my finger from the scissors.The snowflakes definitely made things feel more festive, but then last night while walking home from the grocery store we found a man on the side of the road who was selling stockings and Santa hats. We each bought a stocking and we hung them on our wall with those sticky wall hook things. They made it feel even more like Christmas. We aren't planning on buying each other Christmas presents like we normally would, but I will definitely be getting some stocking stuffers now that we have stockings to put them in!

The Icing on the cake for us took place just a few hours ago. We were at the grocery store again to buy some cheap crappy toilet paper when we saw that they finally had some Christmas items for sale in the store, some of which were fake Christmas trees! They didn't have very many trees and none of them were very tall, and half of them were silver, but we decided to get one anyway. It is so cute. It is only about a foot and a half tall. While walking home I was hoping we would see people with chritmas ornaments, and we did, but they were ugly and poor quality and they were asking more than I wanted to pay. So once we got home we decided to decorate the tree with my jewelry! So we used my necklaces as garlands and my earrings as ornaments. I have to say I think it turned out pretty cool. I wouldn't want to do things this way every year, but for our situation here in China things have worked out pretty good. We are able to catch a little bit of that Christmas spirit that is so prevalent back home. Enjoy your full size and maybe even real Christmas tree's and know that we are happy for you and also a little jealous!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

No pictures, just words. Maybe Lindsay should take over...

2009-12-19T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time again. "Write some more! Give us an update!" Well, I'm afraid that it isn't that easy. So, I figure I will write another novel as I attempt to convey uninteresting times to a potentially uninterested public.

These past few weeks have been testing for the level 1, 2, and 3 English Teachers at Wuhan University of Science and Engineering. That means that Lindsay and I have been giving our students tests. And I literally mean giving. Lindsay especially had made it really easy for her students to pass with flying colors (well, half the students passed with flying colors. She's just a good teacher. She doesn't give away any answers, but she gave the students amazing preparation). I gave my students almost all the answers before the test started. The issue is that many students don't come to class. On the actual days of testing, Lindsay had 15 students blatantly choose to skip the testing, and in McKay's classes he had the number of students triple to 12 or so. Needless to say, we have spent the past few weeks failing students. It is rather satisfying, actually. Nothing feels better than failing the students when 1/4 of them blatantly cheat, 1/2 don't follow directions, and another 1/4 just don't show up.

The Chinese students here have a strategy for passing English tests. The first is to put as many words down as possible and hope that one is right. I have seen that one a lot. The next, and the easiest for the students, is just to look off of each others papers. Of course, the fact that the students are sitting arm and arm doesn't help. As a student, you automatically are looking at your neighbors paper. You don't really have a choice! The desk forces you to cheat! Then, some students blatantly cheat: asking their neighbors what the answer to number 2 is, in Chinese, thinking I can't understand them; keeping answers from previous tests in their cubby under their desks, like I did in first grade; or using their cell phones.

Occasionally, meaning three students total in McKay's classes, students just work through the semester and do a really good job. In McKay's classes, there are only three of those students, but they make things a lot more fun. Lindsay is either better or luckier, because she has a lot more students who are good and try hard. Those students are fun. Speaking of which, you may notice the percentages. McKay has about 5 good students and 110 students total. All of the stuff every Westerner is told about Chinese students being so much better than any American student is bunk. They are good at math. Not thought. Actually, I think that if they had to do anything except exponents the Americans would win every time. Every time. So, don't let those stereotypes get to you. They are not true.

We have found tapioca drinks on the back street. That means that McKay is going crazy buying various flavors of milk tea without tea with tapioca added. How is that for complex Chinese? They are good. Lindsay is proving herself as a supportive wife by going along and drinking strawberry tapioca milk as we speak. (McKay has chocolate AND blueberry!)

On another note, China has a issue with people paying money. They require you to pay at various locations within stores, but they do not make any of them convenient. I have become sympathetic to Chinese thieves. I have had my fare share of times that I wanted to join their ranks. At Carrefour they attached tags to some measuring cups, but they attached them to the ring with a large hole in it. On the rack there were six measuring cups, but only two had tags on them. We grabbed one, and it immediately fell off. We picked it up. It fell off again. We put it on again, and held it in our hand on the way to the cash register. Now, the cash registers have a 20 minute wait. They take their sweet, precious, Chinese time, and we all wait impatiently. Somehow, between putting it from my hand to the cashier the tag fell off. Again, and was lost forever, so they wouldn't let us buy it. Seriously. Lindsay was irate. McKay was dejected. So, we went to try buy it again. McKay found the last one to buy it again, but didn't want to wait for another 20 minutes at the registers at the other end of the other floor. Going to the other registers wasn't any better. One cashier refused to serve us, and McKay gave up arguing with her in broken Chinese and increasingly indecent hand gestures. After going to the other register, we found it was twice as long of a wait as the other levels. I was tempted to put the measuring cups in my coat, walk out of the store and call it a day. But, being a good, moral person, we fought our way through the throngs of Chinese to the lady who before had refused us service. Ignoring her we practically forced her to take our money. China is weird. I would have thought that the first part of my business would have been figuring out how to get money from my customers, not to increase a customers yearning to steal. I don't understand Chinese logic.

Anyways, we have bought some really inexpensive, 5 yuan, stockings. We are totally going to fill them with stuff! And then throw them away. You get what you pay for. I'll be surprised if they last a week, but we are both really excited to have them. We are discussing where to hang them up.

Lindsay has spent the past day and a half baking. She has made some delectable cookies, decadent cookies, and a few scrumptious cookies too. You may notice the trend. Lindsay likes making cookies, and they are very good thanks to our mothers supplying Lindsay with some decent ingredients. Yesterday, Lindsay decided that she wanted to get some food coloring for her sugar cookies. We went out on a search, and it was my job to talk to the bakeries and try to buy some. After a few minutes we found a bakery that was willing to sell us their near-empty bottle of pink food coloring: 5 yuan. We jumped at the chance, and Lindsay promptly tried it out on her imported frosting from Metro. And then she almost gagged. The food coloring tasted like toilet cleaner, and she took in a large spoonful in anticipation of the sumptuousness she thought she would soon encounter. Needless to say, we wasted a bit of frosting that way. One thing we noticed as we went about trying to find the food coloring was cakes. There were lots of little cakes with little strawberries on top. Well, they looked like strawberries when I first saw them. They were actually tomatoes covering a well-decorated chocolate cake. Come to think of it, Lindsay's Thanksgiving cake had tomatoes on it as well. The Chinese use tomatoes as a fruit. They put them on cakes, in fruit bowls and dishes, and eat them instead of breakfast fruits. It is a very different use for tomatoes. Even the Flannery's children pick out the tomatoes from a fruit salad to suck down on their juicy not-good-aloneness. That is a Chinese custom that we are not going to bring back with us. It may be healthy, but it sure doesn't seem appetizing.

Lindsay says this is a novel. I disagree.

2009-12-05T04:43:00.000-08:00

Today, Lindsay and I went to a new pagoda. It was hidden away from the beaten path, so it was hard to find, and it is really hard to see from the road. About two months ago, we were on our way to church and saw a random tower jutting into the air. We wanted to go see it really bad, but it was just a random tower in the middle of a hill. We had no idea what its name was, how to get there, or if we would even be allowed to go inside. But, since we had seen practically everything else touristy in Wuhan, we hopped a bus today and went searching for it. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to find. Just follow the 583 bus to a random park and walk south for half an hour.

It was the closest we have been to nature since MoShan （磨山景区). After passing a statue and moving past an obelisk of sorts, we started through the "woods" on our way to see what we could see. First we found an old man and woman sitting and playing songs. The woman was singing, and the man was playing a zither (I think). It might not have been the best music I have ever heard, but it was really fitting for the surroundings. The music definitely made it feel more Chinese, which was nice. We had to follow some trails for a while though. We were walking along with multiple other Chinese folk through the trees. Occasionally we saw the city a little through the trees. We had been climbing up for a while, and we were getting nearer to the top of the hill. This would be the equivalent of going to the top of Main Street over the course of half a mile though. It isn't a hard walk, but in a flat land that difference in height makes a huge difference in the views. At our school we get some classes near the top floors, but those view are always so obstructed by buildings that this view was one of the best we have seen since coming to China.

We were wondering exactly where on earth the pagoda could be. Suddenly, Lindsay turned to the right and it was just there. Magically. There's something to be said for those Buddhists. It literally seemed to have come from nowhere. We couldn't see a thing until it was just standing there in front of us. It was really exciting, but disappointing at the same time. It was older than we had expected, and it hasn't been as kept up as one might have thought. We quickly found out why. It was only 2元 to get in! (about 29 cents). And the pagoda was built in 1280. It's name: Hong Shan Bao ta (洪山宝塔). It was really nice that it was so cheap. However, my critical judgment crept in once we ventured inside. The pagoda was littered with small shrines. Literally, almost everywhere you turned there was another shrine, oftentimes with fruit placed in front of them. But the disappointing part came from the people who had been there before us. It was a pagoda from 1280, but parts of it looked like the bathroom walls at a truck-stop by Thermopolis, Wyoming. There was so much graffiti that the pagoda was a symbol of desecration instead of dedication. I found it sad to see and read the inscriptions as we passed them. Lots of them were from teenagers in love. Since my Chinese isn't that good (yet) I hope that I misunderstood the meanings and people really are supposed to put graffiti there as a way of bringing in the favor of the gods.

There were outlooks on every level. As you might guess, they became more impressive the higher you went, but the amazing part was the size of the openings. As you first walk into the pagoda you needed to duck the entire way-unless you are a shrunken Chinese monk from hundreds of years ago. Then, there were precariously steep stairs leading up to the next level. I bumped my head on the ceiling as we went up. Then you came out into a small room, with more precarious stairs leading up even higher, and some small openings tunneling to the outside. Lindsay and I took one, but the size made it so we were nearly crawling. I hit my head harder on the ceiling this time. When we came to the outside we found that we were covered in dust from the walls and the ceiling as we scraped past them on the way out to the small overlook. It was a good view, and worth the bump and the gnawing claustrophobia. But the views only got better as we continued up the increasingly unnavigable stairs. On each floor we saw another Buddha, and on each floor there were multiple overlooks.

As we went up, it seemed that the stairways and the overlooks opened up even more. I didn't hit my head any more, and I got less dust on my coat. It was hard work, so Lindsay and I were pretty sweaty by the time we reached the top. But here the views were better than any of the lower levels. We had a clear view above the miniature forest on the hill, that stood out in harsh contrast to the development that lay beyond, but this time the buildings were low enough that they didn't block our view. It was the best view we have had in Wuhan. Even better than Yellow Crane Tower. Also, we had a full view of the Buddhist complex that lay at the base of the pagoda. We didn't know it was there, but we had seen the yellow walls of the complex earlier and wondered what lay beyond. Now we saw that we were there. We found out later that there may have been a more proper way to gain access to the Buddhist complex, but this was sufficient.

The architecture continued to get more intricate, more colorful, more beautiful, and more impressive as we went down. Unfortunately, the Buddhists don't like people taking pictures of their shrines, so we tried to comply. Sometimes we found that they were all taking pictures, so we figured we would be allowed to do so as well. The first building was surrounded by cabbage given as an offering. The insides of the building contained 500 painted statues of various figures in Chinese Buddhist folklore. They were encased in filthy glass: so filthy that one couldn't see through to the top levels. But the bottom levels were painted beautifully, and what added to the drama was the fact that these figures were ridding on a practically innumerable host of sea monsters. It was impressive, and luckily not as scary as the depictions of a Buddhist hell we found at other Buddhist sites.
The next buildings were exquisite on their outsides, and their insides were sparkling. They all had majestic tapestries of silk and immense statues. The main building centered on on a massive statue of, in my opinion, the original Buddha. But the walls were equally impressive. Each wall, reaching to the very top of this gargantuan room, had a small figure of the Buddha, about the size of a small laptop. The figure was repeated so that the walls were literally just statues of Buddha. About fourteen inches tall and practically touching the next figure above it, the figures on its sides and the figure below. The ceiling was as ornate as any I have seen in China. It was a stunning display of art and reverence. After walking out of that building we found another building with monks preparing for an offering of some sort. We walked into the square, surrounded on all sides by these beautiful buildings and were taking pictures. The monks came out and began to chant, playing their small chimes and drums. A monk lit a candle in an alter on the opposite side of the square, followed by two women who set a bundle of intricately folded yellow paper into the fire, and began their prostrations. Another monk started banging on a large wooden drum shaped to look like a dragon. It was an unusual sight.

We continued walking through the buildings as we neared the exit. Here we found groups of people taking pictures with the statues. We took this opportunity to jump in and start taking our own. We didn't want to desecrate anything, but we would to whatever we could without offending. We found some interesting statues there. The next building switched forms almost immediately. Instead of plasters and paints, there were wood carvings. The wood carvings were massive and even more intricate than the others we had seen. And we found that the first statue in the complex was the happy Buddha we all know (and love) from tasteful decorations at a good Chinese buffets.We left the complex satisfied, with hundreds of pictures, and with an appetite for some pizza...which we satisfied at Papa John's.

Somebody Just Pays...

2009-11-30T22:57:00.000-08:00

We went out to dinner with most of the foreign teachers from our school on Saturday night. We went to Brussels, the restaurant I wrote about in my last post. Sadly, in a cruel twist of fate, Katrina got sick just a few hours before we left. She was the one who put all the hard work into planning the event and then she couldn't even go. Just know that we were thinking of you Katrina.

Well, after about 1 1/2 hours on a bus we got off the bus and had to wander around for a few blocks to find the restaurant. We accidentally got off the bus a little bit early so we had to figure out where we were going. Once we got to the restaurant and out of the cold we got a chance to look at the menu. The menu had so many yummy options to choose from that were not Chinese! You can actually get a steak there! It is the first place we have come across that serves an actual steak. The steak was tempting, but I had already decided I was having turkey, so that is what I got. All of the food we ordered was delicious. It was more than delicious, it was amazing! Our taste buds were so happy. We would like to eat there every night, except that it was super expensive (some of the steaks cost 200 yuan!). However, after eating the food we decided that the high price was worth it.

When we were ready to leave we asked the waitress to bring us the bill. When she handed it to me my jaw dropped. The total came to almost 700 yuan! I tried to say there was a mistake and ours should only cost about 15o yuan, however I was stopped by some people around me. I was told that here in China they don't do separate checks, they just bring one big bill for the entire table. And they won't split it for you even if you ask. That is just something they don't do here. Then I was told that here in China they don't worry about splitting it up and every one paying for their items because they usually eat family style at restaurants. I was then told that usually they bring the bill out and "somebody just pays.... we usually take turns taking care of the bill". I was also told that usually the person who asks for the bill was the one who paid for it. AHHHHH! I was so worried. I didn't want to pay for the entire table! McKay and I made sure to eat economically. We didn't have any drinks like the other teachers and got some of their cheaper items for dinner. Luckily the others at our table were willing to figure out exactly what each person owed. That was a relief.
I never thought I would miss going dutch when going out to eat. When I was dating I thought it was dumb, and since being married I haven't had to think about it. But the other night I really missed being able to go dutch when it came to dinner. Despite their different billing style, we will definitely be going back to Brussels Cafe. We will probably just go on our own next time to avoid those bill issues.

A Ramada Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T23:04:00.000-08:00

This year thanksgiving was really strange. Because China doesn't celebrate thanksgiving it wasn't talked about or anticipated as much. We also didn't get any time off of work or get to spend the time with family, so it didn't really feel like thanksgiving. However, one of the other foreign teachers at our university took it upon herself to put together some thanksgiving plans. Those plans were made by multiple phone calls to the owner of a restaurant here in Wuhan called Brussels. It is a restaurant that serves "western" and European foods and the owner had found some place to get turkey, so we were all calling in our reservations to get a plate of turkey from him.

Well, right after we had all made plans to go to Brussels, we received an email from the foreign affairs department here at our school inviting us to a thanksgiving dinner at the Ramada a few miles down the road from our school. They gave us really short notice and gave us just a few hours to tell them whether or not we were coming. However, since the turkey dinner at Brussels would have been about 120 yuan per person and the dinner held by the school was free... we all decided to go have thanksgiving dinner at the Ramada on the school's dime instead. Luckily the owner of Brussels seems like a pretty cool guy and he is letting us come eat some turkey on Saturday instead.

When dinner time arrived we all met together at the bus stop in front of the school and planned to take taxi's down to the Ramada, but there was a major traffic jam and the taxi's didn't want to go down there, so our taxi ended up taking us the long way around, which made the cab fare cost double what it usually does. However, at least we got a cab. Some of the teachers ended up walking. It is just over 2 miles, which isn't that bad, but it still takes about 3o minutes to walk. When we all finally arrived in our various taxi's or on foot, we were happy to find that the Ramada here in Wuhan is really fancy!

The Ramada

We were taken up to the 28th floor of the hotel to have a buffet style dinner in their rotating restaurant. It was really beautiful and we had some amazing views. We could tons of twinkling lights spreading out across the city below us. I have never been in a rotating room before, and I have to say it is pretty cool, but it is a little bit disorienting.

The dinner itself was pretty good. They had hundreds of different things for us to eat, but very few of them were actually thanksgiving foods. They had one turkey for the entire buffet, so I only got a little slice. Needless to say, I am glad I can go to Brussels on Saturday to get more turkey. They also had about 5 baked potatoes and a crock pot full of pumpkin soup. They also had a pumpkin pie, but it was the worst tasting pumpkin pie I have ever come across in my entire life! All of the teachers had fun trying random foods, and a lot of teachers took advantage of the fresh salmon that they had there (it was raw so I didn't have any). They also had all kinds of fruit and noodle dishes and TONS of dessert. They had a chocolate fountain, but the only thing by the chocolate fountain to dip in were skewers with cherry tomatoes! Who eats tomatoes dipped in chocolate???????? No one that I know does that, so the tomatoes sat untouched and we found other things to dip in the chocolate (Simon got smart and drizzled some lemon marshmallows in the chocolate).

The dessert buffet and seafood buffet

It was a fun evening because it had tons of good, non-chinese food, and it was nice to be removed from our mundane teachers life in our drafty apartment for a few hours, and we could live it up for a little while. I think everyone ate more food than we have in months! The person who packed the most food away also happened to be the smallest and the skinniest of the bunch. We were all quite surprised that she could keep eating and eating and eating and eating, and her stomach didn't even start to poke out!

Well we were missing our family and friends back home on Thanksgiving, but it was nice to have something nice to do to celebrate.

22

2009-11-23T19:19:00.001-08:00

I am officially one year older now. On the 23rd I turned 22! We started birthday celebrations on Sunday by having birthday cake with our little piece of the ward here in Wuhan. They were all over at our apartment for church and then lunch anyway, so we decided to have birthday cake then. It was fun to be able to share my birthday with them.

On my actual birthday I had to teach classes but when I came home from classes McKay had a very sweet birthday card and my first present waiting for me next to a lit candle. He told me it was my birthday candle and had me blow it out, and that was the start of the birthday festivities. We talked to a number of our family members online through skype and with each new conversation we had he would whip out another present and have me open it over video chat so that my family and his family could share in the birthday celebration. It was kind of fun to have them a little involved, even if it was only over the internet. He ended up getting me some beautiful chinese hair pins, a beautiful pair of earrings, a fun pen that is leaving a trail of glitter behind it, and UNO!

That evening, after McKay was done teaching his classes we went to Pizza Hut for dinner. I never thought I would see the day when Pizza Hut was a high class, swanky, expensive restaurant. Well, It is. At least here in China it is. We love going to Pizza Hut because there is noting more familiar than pizza. We both thought it was kind of funny that Pizza Hut has decided that it is Christmas time. Because they don't do thanksgiving here they switched right over from Halloween to Christmas. All of the waiters and waitresses were wearing Santa hats and they had Christmas trees in the corners and Christmas music playing in the background. It was awesome, but it felt a little early for all of that. However, we would have enjoyed our ham and pinapple stuffed crust pizza just as much, with our without the Christmas decorations.

Enjoying our yummy stuffed crust pizza.

After dinner we walked around the shopping mall that the Pizza Hut is attached to and McKay took me to all the places that he found my presents. At one of the stores we found the most beautiful beaded shirts, dresses and skirts. I really wanted to get one, but for some reason I am not built like a 5 foot nothing tiny Chinese girl, so the items that could actually get on, fit horribly. One of the dresses looked like I was wearing a apron! After the shopping we stopped at one of our new favorite places, Beard Papa's. Isn't that a silly name? I think it is, especially since they sell cream puffs and eclairs. Beard Papa's is a mini cream puff bakery located underneath and escalator. What makes them so good is that unlike most of the chinese desserts, they are actually sweet, and they fill them with the cream filling right in front of you, so they are super fresh. We each got a chocolate covered cream puff for desert and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Our rather large chocolate eclairs from Beard Papa's

After that we made one last stop in the basement of the shopping center so McKay could show me a store that carried games. They store the Chinese version of lots of familiar games including Monopoly, Settlers of Cattan, Pictionary, and last but not least, BANG! We bought out their entire collection of Bang games because the basic game back home costs $15-20 and the expansion pack costs about $40. However, here in China we were able to buy the original game and the bullet expansion pack (which includes all 3 expansion packs) for the equivalent of $13. We thought that was a pretty sweet deal. We are not exactly sure who they will go to when we get home, but we couldn't resist. When we got home one of our fellow teachers Katrina came over, and we talked with her as she helped us finish off some birthday cake.

It was a good day, and I am so excited to experience my 22nd year of life!

KTV

2009-11-22T06:04:00.000-08:00

On Friday at the beginning of class, one of my students asked me if she could make an announcement. I told her as long as it was quick that would be fine. She proceeded to write on the board in Chinese. The only thing I could read was 999 written in the middle of her Chinese characters. When she was done writing she announced that the whole class was going to the KTV that afternoon, and then she turned to me and told me I was invited. Normally when I am invited to do things with students I try to graciously duck out because I don't want to blur the line between Teacher and friend. I want them to like me, but I don't want them to think that they can treat me like on of their buddies, especially since I am only 2 years older than them. Well, on this occasion almost all of my students turned to me and asked, "are you coming?" "do you have plans?" "you want go with us?" "are you bringing your husband with you?". And then the statements and pleas started. "You have to come" "your husband come with you" "we meet at 1:30 and we wait for you". Even though their English is a little broken, there was no mistaking that almost all of my students wanted and expected me to come, and they expected McKay to be in tow. So, we went. McKay came a little bit grudgingly because singing karaoke, especially in front of a bunch of Chinese teenagers is not his cup of tea. But, McKay loves me, and he wanted to have a new adventure so he came for part of the time.

When we got to the KTV I was really surprised at how fancy and upscale it was. My class had their own private room reserved, room 999. It was really cool. There were 2 levels to the room, the bottom level had 2 tables surrounded by couches, a computer monitor to choose your songs, a bar area, two T.V. screens and a little stage with a monitor and a stool for you to perform on. The second level had a long counter with bar stools looking down on the lower level performing area, a private bathroom, a big circular booth where the students were playing some dice game, and more couches against the walls. On top of all the space and amenities the ceiling was mirrored and the room was lit up by fiber optic and neon lights that kept changing colors. The room was fairly dark, but it was really colorful and pretty.

Waiting for our turn with a handful of students.

It took them a while to get the karaoke equipment working properly, but once they did my students decided that McKay and I were going to sing a duet first. That worked out just fine because McKay was only going to be there for 30 minutes so he needed to go first. Their English song selection was lacking a little bit, and if they singer is at all popular they have a name in Chinese, so only the unpopular singers have the artists name in English. The First song we came across that we both knew (and could actually tell what the song was) was barbie girl by Aqua. McKay and I made complete fools of ourselves by singing loudly and a little off key, and we danced around a little bit to make it even better. When that song was done they told us we were doing another one, so we sang Apologize by One Republic. It didn't go so well... but it was very entertaining for the students and we got a lot of applause from them.

Singing Barbie Girl and Apologize

A little after that 3:00 hit and McKay had to go back home because he had a class to teach, so I was left alone with 25-30 Chinese kids, luckily I knew the majority of them. I voluntarily sang a solo because I happen to enjoy singing, and they happened to have one of my all time favorite songs, Cry for You by September. It made me feel really good to hear them all clapping and cheering for me when I was done. I thought I would be done after that but we stayed at the KTV for another 2 and a half hours, so, I ended up singing a number of songs. I even sang a duet with one of my students. Her English name is Day and she is quite the little singer. For some reason Avril Lavigne is really popular here in China. I like Avril Lavigne as well, but it still amazes me that out of all the English speaking singers out there, Avril is the one the Chinese people have latched on to. Well, I sang a duet to an Avril Lavigne song with Day, because Avril's songs were the only American songs she knew. Before we left they got me to sing Hot'N'Cold by Katy perry, Halo, by Beyonce, and like 4 other songs that I cant remember at the moment. It seemed like every time there was a break in people who wanted to sing, or whenever someone started to sing multiple songs in a row they would decide that it was teachers turn to sing again. It was fun, but I wonder what my students think of me now and what kinds of comments I will be met with in class next week. I had fun though, so it doesn't matter too much.

(I couldn't hear myself because I had a cold, and it was really really noisy.

Plugging my ear seemed to help.)

Since then I have been wondering whether or not a KTV or a high class karaoke bar would have any potential in america and think it would be really cool to open one, and then I remember that most people back home wouldn't think that paying to possibly embarrass yourself in a fancy karaoke club would not be that cool. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy it while I am here in China.

McKay singing his guts out...

Sitting with Yolanda, Day, Stefanie, Vanessa, Miracle and Alice

With Ozzie and Easy Glass
(I know, Easy Glass? He picked it, not me!)

Outside the building with some of the girls. They told me that it is very popular to take your picture in front of that water fall thing, so, we decided to be very popular.

Thanks 3C kids, I had a blast!

Grandma's Feather Bed

2009-11-21T04:57:00.000-08:00

McKay and I went out to dinner tonight after we picked up my birthday cake from Mr. Mai's. While we were waiting for my noodle dish (it was supposed to be fettuccine carbonara, but it turned out to be noodles with scrambled eggs) I heard a familiar song playing quietly. I couldn't really pick out the words at first but recognized that I knew it because I was humming along. Then the words to the song hit me. It was John Denver's song Grandma's Feather Bed! That was one of the songs we would listen to with my dad when I was a little kid and it was comforting to hear a familiar song in the middle of china (other than an Avril Lavigne song). Hearing the song made me feel all warm and happy inside. I love that little sentimental things like a familiar song can make you feel at home, even when you are on the opposite side of the world.

Super Long Sunday

2009-11-16T05:38:00.000-08:00

While we are here in China our Sunday's are very different than they used to be. Church is held through teleconference originating in Beijing. All of the members in the big cities meet together somewhere to dial in and listen. We are not the only members here in Wuhan, so we try to meet together with everyone else on Sunday. Luckily one of the other LDS couples are also here at our school and live in the same building that we do. We love that we live so close to the Skaggs, they are so fun to have around. There is another couple who lives about half an hour away who we have only met the wife once. There is also a super cute family that lives all the way across the city named the Flannery's. They have a 3 year old boy and a 2 year old girl and they are seriously some of the cutest children i have ever seen! They make the 2 hour trip across town worth it. Well, church starts at 10:00 a.m. so we have to get down to the bus stop and hop on a bus by 8:00. We ride the 583 bus until the very end of the line which takes around an hour and a half and then because the bus route ends they kick us off and we have to catch a taxi. Once we find a cab that doesn't already have passengers (which is harder that it seems) we take a 10-12 rmb bus ride to the Flannery's apartment. By the end of 2 hours sitting in buses and taxi's it is hard to sit for church, but like I said their kids make it worth it. They are so cute and energetic and entertaining. I don't understand what they are saying to me because they are speaking Chinese but it doesn't even matter. We have lots of fun playing with them, teasing them, and just watching them bounce around and make messes. After church we all eat lunch together and then catch another taxi and bus back home.

Well this last Sunday it was really really cold. We (The Skaggs and ourselves) were all bundled up for the bus ride. This time we got to the Flannery's in less than 2 hours, which was really nice. However, on the way home something went terribly wrong. Our taxi driver seemed to have a hard time getting us to the bus stop. He took a very long roundabout way that ended up costing us more than normal. We were lucky enough to get on a heated bus for the ride home, but we ended up being stuck on the bus for 3 hours! After 3 hours a heated bus smashed full of people gets really really hot. We started to get sweaty and had to peel off some layers. The last hour of the bus ride we only drove about 2 miles. When we were just about 2 miles or 7 stops from home our bus broke down and they herded everyone off. There was another bus waiting to pick us up, but it already had it's own load of passengers and there was no room for us. The traffic was also pretty backed up so we all decided to just walk home, even though it was raining. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be walking in the rain while I was still sick, but we didn't get home until after 4:30. 8:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m. is a long time to devote to church and traveling to and from church. I guess at least we got an interesting experience and story out of it.

Sick . . . at the same time

2009-11-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

I caught some kind of a bug on Halloween. I am not sure what, but it has continually gotten worse over the last week. Being sick was fine when i didn't have to teach because McKay is a really good husband and took care of me completely. He would fetch me whatever I needed and helped me feel better. Well, McKay caught the bug too about 2 days ago. Having both of us sick at the same time is bad news! Usually one of us takes care of the other when they are sick, but now we are both just lounging around the apartment in our matching blue sweatpants and BYU hoodies, watching season 4 of Monk and coughing our guts out. We would probably be a pretty pathetic sight right now, it is a good thing we are really cut off from the world right now because we can wallow in our misery in peace. Lets hope this bug passes through quickly!

Chinese Fashion Show

2009-10-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night McKay and I had an amazing opportunity. We were invited to a fashion show. Our university has a large and fairly reputable fashion and textiles program and in honor of some foreign guests here for a convention dealing with foreign trade and business, they put on a fashion show. Because we are foreigners we were invited to attend. Sadly, the person who runs the office that informed us of the event is not very reliable so we were told the wrong location. Even though we started out in the wrong place we eventually found where the show was (thank you Chanton and Katrina!) and were only a few minutes late. I thought the fashion show was amazing. The clothing was very unique. There were some really bizarre things, but also a few items that i would wear if they were tweaked a little. None of the Male foreign teachers seemed to get much enjoyment out of the fashion show, but i was riveted. My only regret is that I did not bring our professional camera with us, so all we had at this amazing show was my point and shoot camera. Here are some photos and videos of the show....

Happy Birthday McKay!

2009-10-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

生日快乐
(that means happy birthday in Chinese)

McKay turned 26 today. I tried to make it a really fun day, but my plans were hampered a little bit by the fact that we are in China and a lot of the things i wanted were absolutely unavailable to me. Luckily the day went pretty well. The first half of the day was just like any other because we both had to teach classes and then had a pointless staff meeting in the afternoon. Then the plumber came at about 3:30 to finish up the last work on our bathroom, so Happy Birthday McKay! You can use your toilet again! We can't use the shower until tomorrow but that is ok.

After a quick dinner on the back street we picked up McKay's birthday cakes (he had 2 because the first one we ordered was really tiny and we realized it wouldn't feed everyone coming to his makeshift party). Then we went over to the school and had his birthday party/english lab in a classroom that has pretty much been designated for McKay's use. The school even gave him the keys to the room! Most of the other foreign teachers showed up to get a piece of cake, because who can pass up free cake? Just a minute or two after the teachers left McKay's little posse of admirers showed up.

McKay has a little group of female students who like him, and I mean LIKE him. He doesn't seem to think so as much, or he tries not to think about it, but they totally like him! One of his students said "I love you" as she walked out of the classroom the other day. Isn't that funny! Another one of his students turned in their assignments in a Card type thing (I'm not exactly sure what it was) but it said, "I LOVE YOU, you provide my best friend you provide me with joy and love..." Isn't that great! McKay's students "LOVE" him. I find the whole thing pretty entertaining and really fun to tease McKay about.

When we got home I gave McKay a chess set for his birthday. For those of you who don't know us we are a tad bit nerdy, and McKay absolutely loves to play chess. I have only beat him once or twice, which makes him love it even more. So part of the present was that not only would he have a chess set, but i would play it with him, and inevitably let him beat me. We played 3 games of chess right then. I lost all three times. So everything included I think he had a good birthday. I sure hope he did! I Love you McKay! Even more than your students!

Guyuan Si Buddhist Temple

2009-10-10T02:07:00.000-07:00

These pictures are all from our trip to Guyuan Si the Buddhist temple that is about an hour away from our apartment.
I kept seeing people rub coins against these things all over the temple grounds and was really confused until our friend Ryan explained to me that if you can rub the coin long enough and fast enough to magnetize it and make it stick, you get good luck. Some of the Chinese people were cheaters and would just stick their coins on some random ledge and count that as sticking. I didn't get my jiao to stick, but I also gave up after about a minute. Just in case you didn't already know, when you rub a little piece of metal quickly and continuously against a big piece of metal, the little piece of metal gets HOT and can start to burn your finger. Good Chinese luck was not worth the effort or burnt fingers for me.
The picture above and below are shrines within the temples. Apparently you are not supposed to take pictures of them because while McKay was taking these a little Chinese lady came in and told us over and over in Chinese that we could not take pictures. Of course we didn't understand her, so she walked us over to a sign around the corner and showed us a picture of a camera with and X through it. That helped me understand pretty quickly. At least we were able to get a few pictures before we were caught.

This little red thing is really fun. I think it is another good luck mechanism. The Chinese people would line up and take their turn throwing coins at it trying to hit a little gong or bell in the center of the opening. We stood there and watched for a few minutes until somebody actually hit it. I didn't even try because I am not the most accurate coin thrower.
These carvings along the side of one of the temple walls were amazing! Each panel is a different story or fable, and each has a very intricate illustration carved into the rock.

This is one of those things you rub the coins on. It was the biggest and fanciest one in the park, so i figured it might give me more luck than the smaller plain ones!

Part of the entrance fee to the temple goes towards a few sticks of incense. The first thing that happens when you enter the gates is that they hand you some incense and send you over to light it and worship something (I am not sure what, I guess I am not very knowledgeable about Buddhism). McKay and I just ended up just lighting them and sticking them in to the ashes with all the others. We didn't do any of the bowing or chanting stuff that every one else was doing. At that moment i really felt like an outsider. It made me wonder what it would be like for people with no knowledge of my religion coming to church and trying to figure out what to do without speaking the language. Confusing. Utterly confusing, yet extremely interesting. That is what it was like for me anyway.

We had a really fun time while we were there, and once we were out of the main gate (which McKay is standing in front of in this picture) there were tons of little stores to shop in. If any one wants any kind of Buddhist statues, or replicas of the monks clothing, or mini shrines, I know where to find them.

National Day Holiday

2009-10-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

We got to have a much needed break from teaching from October 1st to 8th because of the Chinese National Day and their Mid Autumn Festival. We had some major challenges over the break but we also had a lot of fun and got to see some really cool things.

We had bathroom troubles during the break. Our bathroom has had a major leak since the day we moved in and on the first day of our break they sent a plumber to come fix it. After a few hours of incessant pounding he fixed it, but he left a huge hole in the wall and pieces of tile, cement, and brick all over our bathroom! We also had an issue with our toilet not working because a piece of the plumbing from our leaky faucet went down the toilet! Because of that we didn't have a working toilet for a week! We had to go across the street to the school or go to the McDonald's to use the toilet. That was not pleasant because there are not very many western style toilets in this town so we had to use squatty potties and we had to go for a little walk before we could use the restroom.
On the last day of our break, we had another toilet issue. I broke the toilet seat. Because our bathroom is Chinese style, our shower head is mounted next to the toilet and sprays onto the toilet. Because of that lovely configuration I prop my foot up on the toilet seat whenever i need to shave or open the window (its behind the toilet). Well when i propped my foot up the other day I broke right through the toilet seat. It was yucky and very painful. My shin now has a number of cuts and bruises, and we have a smashed toilet seat! We are now on the lookout for a replacement seat.If you ignore the bathroom issues we had a pretty good break. We got to see a ton of fireworks, and we heard about 20 times more than we actually saw. We also got to take some really long and intense bus rides. The traffic here in china is INSANE! they don't seen to believe in staying in lanes, obeying stoplights, or even driving on the right side of the road. They also take to the sidewalks sometimes. We got to see the Yangtze river. I got to step into it (i didn't go too far in because it is really brown and dirty). We also went to Moshan Hill which has some ancient Chu towers, alters, and temples. We also saw some Taoist temples and monks, and some of the other teachers we went with (Robert and Ryan) had their fortunes read by the Taoist monk people. However, when the monks finished reading the fortunes they asked them for a ton of money! We saw some really amazing architecture and gardens there. We got to walk out into a giant lotus field, or I guess it is technically a marsh.

We also spent a day at Guiyuan Si, a Buddhist temple (or temples) here in Wuhan. We saw a ceremony going on with the Buddhist monks that was really cool. They were singing chants as they went. It was so cool! We also saw tons of idols and shrines and gold Buddhas. As we entered we were given incense to light and then stick in front of the temple. I thought it was stinky! They had incense everywhere, so i couldn't escape the smell. McKay likes the smell, so it wasn't an issue for him at all. I am hoping that we will get to see even more neat places like these as time goes on here in China.

Finally in China, Finally have Internet, Finally got around the filters!

2009-09-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

So, where do I begin. We are now in Wuhan China in a seedy little apartment across the street from Wuhan University of Science and Technology. We have some very interesting plumbing situations and it is almost unbearably hot. The temperature is 98-100 degrees during the day with about 80% humidity so it feels like 120! When we go outside we practically melt! We had an entire week all alone in Wuhan without any of the other teachers in town so we spent all of last week just wandering around the city on foot. We found a really cool and really really really really big shopping center about 2 miles down the road from us. At the shopping center we saw some awesome signs on the escalators. When we went back today they had changed them to proper english so I am glad I got some photographic evidence before hand! I can't upload the photo right now because China has all blogs blocked and I am going to great lengths to get on the sight and for some reason adding pictures and videos is NOT and option.

McKay's Turn

2009-05-31T17:06:00.000-07:00

I, McKay Abner Young, admittedly hate blogs. I really don't like the idea of random people seeing what I write without my express permission. However, Lindsay and I went and took pictures yesterday and I wanted to show them to various people. Facebook won't allow uploads of that size, so I guess I'll have to use my wife's blog (with her permission). Though, maybe I will like doing this enough that I'll do it again someday.

My Super Husband

2009-05-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Our nephew Benjamin just had his 5th birthday. He really loves spider man and so his mom decided that spider man should come to his birthday party. Well McKay is the only male in the Young family who could even remotely pull off spider man, so he was assigned the task of becoming spider man. When he showed up to the party all of the little kids screamed!!!! They loved it! (well one little girl was afraid of him so i guess she probably didn't love it.) Some of the little girls had a little crush on spiderman and stayed really close the whole time. They followed him around and asked him questions about why spiderman did this or that and then they did their best spiderman poses and played some games. It was so cute and entertaining to watch. McKay was a little embarrased the whole time but I got quite a kick out of watching my super husband.

Our Busy Busy Lives

2009-04-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

So, we are back from florida, and i have to say it was absolutely fantastic! We got too see almost every member of the Rogers family while we were out there, we were only missing one uncle. We got to go to the beach every single day that we were there and the beaches were heavenly! We found all kinds of wildlife and McKay go to swim with the dolphin's! We saw dolphins a number of times and McKay caught some action shots of the dolphins catching some fish while we were boating one of the days. We also got to ride around in a golf cart, eat a ginormous brunch at the country club, play around in the pool and play lots of card games with our family. We also got to watch a very entertaining little play that my younger cousins put on.

There is always a little bit of drama when the whole family comes together (like some fighting cousins and grandpa telling his grand kids there was no way they were going to make it to college, Yikes!) but it was really nice despite the drama. It is always nice when my grandparents open up thier home to us, they opened it up so much that they didn't have room to stay in their own home! I was so happy that McKay was able to come with us, because i think he may have had more fun than i did!

When we got back from Florida we had to cram in studying and finals because we were gone for the last days of classes and our reading days. Our finals didn't quite go as well as we had hoped, but it's okay because at least they are over! And lucky McKay is done with finals for a very long time because he graduated on Thursday/Friday!

McKay's graduation was so much fun (kind of). We got to pack into the Marriott center with the 6,700+ graduates and all their friends and families on Thursday for commencement (we could not find McKay in the 6,700+ sea of blue caps and gowns). After commencement we went out to dinner at an Indian Buffet that we absolutely love and then we went to his parents house and played a few rounds of Bang! Then on Friday the whole family went to McKay's convocation which was also in the Marriott center. I had all of our fancy camera equipment and was able to get a couple of fun shots of McKay even though he happened to be sitting on the opposite side of the building. After that we had a big family BBQ and played some more Bang. I think every one had a good time and McKay was able to have a memorable graduation.

We then had Sunday to just relax, go to church and play games. But during all of this we have been packing to move. Our apartment is a complete disaster area! About 3/4 of our belongings are boxed up and piled in our living room where our sofa's and TV used to be. We were able to get rid of our 60 inch big screen television on Saturday and sold it for $30. Isn't that a steal! I have to finish packing everything up this after noon and then tonight we will hopefully have people come over to help us move all of the boxes to our nice big new apartment after we get the keys tonight. I am so excited and overwhelmed with everything that has been going on, especially since i started classes again this morning. If anyone wants to help us move things or help me scrub down walls please please PLEASE feel free to come over and help me. I will be doing moving things for the next 3 days! Ahhhh!

Off to Florida!

2009-04-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

We are off to Florida! YAY! I am dying to get to the beach! I'll definitely post some pictures when we get back next week.

Wuhan Here We Come!

2009-03-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

So it's official. We are moving to Wuhan China in August. CRAZY! McKay was offered a job teaching at the university last week. Right after he got the job McKay put in an application for me to work there as well. On Monday they offered me a job teaching English at the university as well. We sent them an acceptance letter on Tuesday so it is official. It has all come together in less than a week!So fast and so easy! I guess it must be fate. We have to be checked into our apartment by August 24th so we will be leaving sometime before that. We will be teaching for two semesters with a 3 week break in between that we will use to travel around China (I'm really excited about that part). We don't know when we are coming home for sure yet, but we know it will be the end of may or beginning of June sometime. Hopefully there will be lots of adventures to report while we are there. AHHHHH!!!! I am moving to CHINA! I am so excited and so nervous! Wuhan here we come!

Here are a few pictures of the university and the city.

Gumpaste!

2009-03-19T08:30:00.001-07:00

I realize it has been a while since my last post, midterms got in the way of my writing. However, now they are over and i am working on a fun little project in my spare time. I am teaching myself (with the help of some video's on you tube) how to make flowers out of gum paste, which means I am making sugar flowers! I have only finished some roses so far, but I am in the process of making some calla lilies. I don't know why, but for some reason the cake decorating bug has bit me again. I seem to go in cycles. There have been a number of times in my life where I have been really excited about and really into cake decorating, and then periods where i don't even think about it. I am hoping that this most recent decorating bug will stay with me for a while. At the moment I think it would be absolutely amazing to make wedding cakes for a living. Maybe I will end up making my way to culinary school.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

I have made some small buds, as well as some medium sized and large roses. I do not have a cutter to make the right kind of calyx for a rose, so I have just been using a daisy cookie cutter, and I think it is working just fine!

Lets Make Some Cake!

2009-03-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

I love baking. Actually I love, love, love, love, LOVE baking. I am torn between what I want to do with my life. Do I want to sew wedding dresses? Or do I want to go to culinary school and end up making wedding (and other) cakes? I don't know yet, but in the mean time I am baking up a storm. The other day after talking about cake decorating, I was told referred to a really cool site by Krystal called cake central. I cannot tell you how much I love this site! My first time on the site was Friday night, and i ended up staying up to reading recipes and forums and look at pictures and videos until 2:00 a.m.! You got me hooked Krystal!

Well on Friday night I saw that someone had posted information about wrapping a cake with chocolate. I saw the cake and instantly decided "I HAVE to do that". So two days later I have been given a chance to make a magnificent cake, because McKay happend to invite some people from the ward over for desert. I ended up making a chocolate cake, iced with chocolate ganache, wrapped it in white and dark chocolate layers, and covered it in white chocolate shavings (they were supposed to be curls, but my chocolate was too brittle). Chocoholic Heaven! Maybe that is what i will have to call it.

To get the layers of chocolate around the cake i had to spread the chocolate on a piece of plastic, then wrap it around the cake and place it in the fridge for about 15 minutes. You have to repeat that for each layer (I found out that white chocolate sets much faster than dark chocolate). I ended up using the left over chocolate i had to do some piping along the bottom because i didn't want to waste it.

Here is the cake chilling in the refrigerator to let the chocolate harden.

This lets you see all of the chocolate shavings on top. I was going to cover it with chocolate covered strawberries, but they were $4.00 per package and I am not made of money.

If anyone wants more detailed instructions on how to make this cake just let me know and I would be happy to fill you in.

Random Statistical Results

2009-02-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

For the research methods class I am taking this semester I had to gather some random data and then perform some basic statistical analysis on that data. I had to get answers from 40 people, so I used the fastest method i new of to gather that data...mass emails on facebook. It worked really well! Thank you everyone who sent me their info! I figured I would share some of the useless statistics and information i gathered from that study.

First off, these were the questions...

1- What year are you in school?
(younger than college, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, grad, other)
2-Which do you like better?
(Hamburgers, hot dogs, don’t like either, like both the same)
3- What is your age?
4- How many siblings do you have?
5- I was supposed to ask gender as well, but I didn't really have to ask to know

So it turns out that out of the 40 people sampled

-17.5% of people prefer hot dogs (7/40)
-62.5% of people prefer hamburgers (25/40)
-10% don't like either (4/40)
-10% like them both the same (4/40)

-out of the people who prefer hot dogs, only one was a girl. I found that a little funny.

also, the number of siblings ranged from 1 to 14 (way to skew the numbers Kelsi!) with the average being 3.63 siblings.

There were 13 boys and 27 girls who participated. Ages ranged from 16 to 34.
mean- 22.1
median-21
mode-20
(I guess that data is very telling of how old most of the people that I associate with are)

McKay wants to go to bed now, so I guess that is the end of the useless statistics. Well maybe they aren't completely useless because they got me a good grade on the assignment. Thanks again everyone who helped!

MR. OREM

2009-02-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight I got to be a judge for Orem High School's Mr. Orem pageant. Because my wonderful sister in law Kira is the student council adviser there she was in charge of getting judges, and when one of her judges canceled she called me! It was so much fun! Some of the guys had hilarious skits. One of them did famous dances that spanned the last 50 years. I could not stop laughing! Then there were a bunch of lame-o jocks who played sports on stage for their talent. Really? I don't want to watch you shoot hoops on stage, especially if you loose the ball and it rolls off stage and into the audience (he didn't get my vote). It was hard deciding who the winners were since all we had to go off of was a group dance number, their skit and one random interview question. One guy was asked what his dream date would be and he said dinner and a movie, because everyone likes to eat and watch movies (I didn't pick him either). Even though it was a bit challenging it was a ton of fun! Thanks for using me as your last minute back up judge Kira!

Triple Date Night!

2009-02-13T22:26:00.000-08:00

Tonight McKay and I went on a triple date with my parents and my little sister Stephanie and her boyfriend Allen. It was not meant to be a triple date, it was supposed to be the whole family, but my siblings kept dropping out like flies! Although unexpected, the night was really fun! We decorated some sugar cookies, went and saw confessions of a shopaholic (which was ok, not great, it was hard to like the main character) and then went to a really yummy chinese buffet. Can you believe that there is a really good chinese buffet out there? It has seriously good food that is always kept fresh. It's more expensive than other buffets, but it is sooooooooo good. So back to the date... My sisters boyfriend Allen is a pretty quiet and shy guy, and doesn't like to spend time with our family (my family can be a little intense so i understand that) so it was kind of a miracle that he came. We always invite him to do stuff with us, but he usually declines, so it was really cool to have him there and even cooler to hear him speak a little bit. So what could have been a potentially awkward few hours ended up being really fun and now I kind of want to do double dates with my family more. I don't know if we actually will, but it's a nice thought.

Testing Center Fun

2009-02-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

I had a fun little experience at the testing center today. Anyone who has been inside of a college testing center knows that you don't mess around. Testing centers are serious, and seriously quiet. Well I had the lovely opportunity to go and take a test for my research methods class (which i was quite nervous for). For some reason the testing center was really busy and it felt like the hundreds or thousands of desks were even closer than usual. Well as I was part way through my test I realized I had made a stupid mistake and filled in the bubble on the wrong question number! so I took my eraser and rubbed away at. Once I was done I just couldn't leave those ugly eraser bits, you know the ones I'm talking about, the little gray, lead covered rubber bits the eraser leaves behind? I HATE them. So I decided I would try to wipe them off. That didn't work so well because it started smudging my answers. So I figured I would blow those bits off. I took a deep breath and blew out on my paper, but air didn't come out, my gum did! I would have blown really hard if that gum hadn't been there, because the gum bounced twice across and off my desk and landed on the backpack of the person next to me! I was a little embarrassed, and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to just leave it there, but it didn't seem like anyone had noticed. I decided I had better retrieve it, so I reached over and down to get it off of the back pack, when it's owner realized i was headed for his bag, saw the gum, and gave me a disgusted look (it was somewhat deserved, but still... rude). I quickly grabbed the gum and tried to find somewhere to put it, and when I finally had it put away I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit to myself. But then the chuckling lead to full on laughter -which attracted the attention of the testing center proctor who walks up and down the aisles to make sure no one is cheating. She walked past my desk like ten times watching me, trying to figure out what the commotion was about (that made me feel like a criminal or something). So... the moral of the story is, never chew gum when you are taking a test! Or at least think about the fact that you have gum in your mouth and secure it before you try to blow away irritating eraser bits so you won't have to re-live my little mishap.

I want to be somewhere WARM

2009-02-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

Right now i am really missing warm weather. I walked to school in the rain and walked home from school in a rain/snow/hail storm. It was really cold!!! I desperately wish I was on a beach some where right now. I don't care which beach or where, but i am feeling very warm weather and beach deprived. Luckily I have pictures and videos of the wonderful warm times I have spent on the beach to help me get through these super cold times.

Two Ships Passing In The Night

2009-02-02T20:03:00.000-08:00

Two ships passing in the night, that's what McKay and I are right now. McKay has a job at Sears that requires him to wake up at 4:00 am every morning so that he can be at the store by 5:00 a.m. to open it (he has a 30 minute drive each way). He gets home from work around 10:00, but I have my first class at 9:30. I am done with class at 3:00 everyday, but McKay starts class at 2:00 and goes until 7:00 or 8:00. When he gets home he has just enough time to eat dinner and talk to me for a few minutes before he has to head off to bed by 8:30 or 9:00 if he wants to get a full nights sleep. Because our schedules are so different we don't get to see each other very much on weekdays, and at the moment I am really missing my husband. For some reason my piles of homework are not doing a good enough job keeping my mind off of him. Thank heavens for the weekend! It lets us spend some much needed time together, and it lets McKay catch up on his sleep. He is napping a lot lately, and i mean A LOT! Here is some proof... I catch him sleeping so much that i have a rather large collection of nap time photos.

All of my free time belongs to crazy, fictional, spanish man.

2009-01-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

This semester I am taking a comparative literature class. I really enjoy actually being in the class, but I find that the homework that falls into my lap from this class alone is enough to occupy all of my free time. For this class we started reading Don Quixote last Friday. One week later, I am 457 pages into with 89 pages to go before 2:00 tomorrow. I don't know about you, but over 457 pages in a one week time period seems pretty steep to me. I just had to complain a little bit, but since all of my free time belongs to Don Quixote, the Knight of the Sad Face, I have to go bury my nose in a book now.

Publish Post

Hope For My Offspring

2009-01-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

In the last post I said that McKay and I were cute kids, Well here is the proof! If you don't agree... keep it to yourself.

Little McKay

don't you think his little glasses are so cute!

Little Me

About Us

2009-01-28T20:03:00.001-08:00

So, It seems to me like the first blog tends to be the one where people tell you all about themselves, or tell you a thing or two about themselves. Since i skipped that before I guess i should introduce myself (and my husband since this is technically his blog too). My name is Lindsay Young. My super cute Husband's name is McKay Abner Young (don't leave out the Abner, he LOVES it!). We are both seniors at BYU right now, thank heavens! We are both ready for school to be over with. Well i guess it's not so much school that we are sick of as much as it is HOMEWORK! Anyway, enough of that, I don't want to make myself too sad right now, so back to our introduction... I am from a pleasant little town called pleasant grove, and my husband is from the neighboring town of Orem. While McKay has lived in the same house in Orem his entire life, i have bounced around a little bit. I was born in New Jersey, Moved to Colorado and then Utah and have now lived in 6 different cities in utah (I guess my parents were a lot more antsy than McKays).
We were both adorable little children (so there is hope for our future offspring!) and are both our parents favorite children (at least we think so, and those who know us and our families will have to agree) I love animals, I grew up with 4 cats, some birds, fish and hamsters. McKay trys to say that he does not like animals and that he does not want pets, but we will see about that. After living about 10 minutes away from eachother for about 5 1/2 years we had a chance meeting at a church singles ward barbeque the first week of summer. After I bumped into him while getting a hamburger and then apologizing, Mckay (being the cheesy guy he is ) said something along the lines of, "It's okay, I don't mind being closer to you". Seeing as how this was our first meeting i had a good laugh on my way to sit down to eat, and low and behold he sat down across from me. After a little bit of confusion and some awkward but amazing first few dates (no one should have to say what? i can't hear you! as many times as i had to) we fell in love and the rest was history! We got engaged on labor day in 2007 and got married on December 29, 2007. Now over a year later we are going strong, loving life and eachother in our little cave of an apartment in Provo.

Let's Get Started!

2009-01-28T19:48:00.000-08:00

This first blog is dedicated to my good friend Kayli Johnson. Her blog is what inspired me to create my own. I can't tell you how much I enjoy checking her blog for new posts (i check it every day, and sometimes twice in anticipation), and when she has one, i always love reading them. It always brightens my mood (at least for a minute) when i read it. I want a place to be able to spend my time when i am sitting on my computer bored out of my mind, and i also want this to be an enjoyable read for others (I honestly don't know if that is possible because i have never considered myself to be very good writer) but we will see how that goes. Now that i have started i can blog away! Also, I am promising now, right this very second, that i am not going to be one of those blogger's who gets started, gets really excited about it, posts about 2 or 3 items and quits. I will keep going! And if i don't i am going to hold you responsible to get on my case and tell me to get my ever growing behind online and write! (Kayli, I mostly mean you.)

Kayli and I on New Years Day 2009