What We Do Know About Our VA Apartment...

Here are a few pictures (really poor quality ones) of our apartment in Richmond. This isn't our exact one, but you get the general feel. It's a little small (660 square feet), but it's within walking distance to school and it's got almost everything that we want. Washer & Dryer, 1.5 Bath, Hardwood floors, New appliances, it's a LOFT! We're pretty excited about it. They are building the apartments right now as we speak, and we are going to be the first ones to live there. That's exciting.












I'm getting anxious for school to start, and anxious for it not to start. Let's hope it goes well. We're excited to be moving all the way across the country, living in a new place, and starting a whole new life. Syd is trying to get a job as a dog-walker, which would be a lot of fun! The plan right now is to leave on August 6th with the moving truck, towing our car & see how many of the 32 hours we can do straight! I'm pretty hardcore. We might try to do it in one shot.

We're definitely going to miss our families though. It's been a great summer where both Syd and I have only worked part-time and had plenty of time to visit and spend time with the ones we love. Thanks heavens for that.

A 38 Year Old Work of Art!

On Tuesday, Sydney and I decided that we would head down to Mapleton to see her hilarious Grandparents who were visiting from Nevada. (Quote from her Grandpa Kay when he was introducing me to someone else in the family. "Oh, he's going to nail old what's-her-face over there..." I about died laughing) It didn't look like we were going to make it down to visit them before we headed off to Virginia, so we decided to make the trip down to say hi. The best part is we chose to take my 1971 Honda CB450 motorcycle! Oh yeah!













It pretty much was a sweet trip and the bike ran like a dream. We did happen to lose our license plate and rear tail light. (the poor thing wasn't used to freeway speeds, even though I had tested it up the canyon at 85+) Of course, knowing my luck, we'd be pulled over by a cop. That is now the 16th time I've been pulled over by an officer of the law. He was pretty understanding, and Sydney and I are safely back in Logan so I could get back to work. All in all, it was a blast!

Floating El Provo!!!

For the 4th of July, we decided to get the families together and float the Provo river. Sydney and I did it last year with a few of them, but we got both gangs together and braved the rapids.

This picture is a gem. My first encounter with the FREEZING water.

It was tons of tons of fun, and Jim brought his waterproof camera!

The water was definitely high and fast this year. Did I mention freezing? The "rapids" were sweet, the current was swift, & the Bridge of Death was no match for our bravery (all but Adam and my Father, who were sucked under!).

Please enjoy the following video. It's pretty intense.

It was a pretty good 4th of July. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Grandma Audrey's watching the parades and having a delicious meal. We ended the day with fireworks and went to bed. Needless to say that Syd and I were tired. We had driven down from Logan the night before, and got to South Jordan around midnight. We then stayed up talking with Adam, Merrick, and Tanner till around 2:30am. Sleep is good.

My good friend at corporate....BEARDY!

So...I hadn't shaved since mid-December until last night. I finally broke down because the whiskers kept poking into my mouth.

BEFORE & AFTER


I'm sure Syd appreciates it even though she says she doesn't care.

Icy RAIN!

The other night in Logan, an icy rain came to visit. All day on campus everyone was slipping and sliding and falling on their butts. As Syd and I were at home we noticed a commotion outside. Earlier Syd had said she saw a girl in her car sideways on our road, and unable to move anywhere. We came outside to this sight.

Please enjoy the movie below despite my camera's freaky lines and such.

Show me the Scotsman who doesn't love the THISTLE!

This weekend, Syd's parents came up to visit us in the cold tundra of Logan. The USU Men's Basketball team was played Boise State on Saturday, and they wanted to come see a game in the Spectrum. Jim attended school here sometime ago, and it was the first time to a college basketball game for a long time for both of them.

Before all that, we made Jim and Kaylene try guitar hero, which they both were very good at. Please enjoy the video of them rocking out!


Not surprisingly, the Aggies dominated Boise State, but we had a little trouble getting into the game. Syd had waited to buy the tickets for her parents till we got to the stadium. Sadly, we were greeted with a SOLD OUT sign. With a little Aggie ingenuity and skill, a few minutes later we were all inside the PACKED Spectrum looking for a seat. (Who knew that re-entry stamps transfer so well from hand to hand?)

We didn't sit very much because there were no seats available, and half the world was saving seats for their friends who didn't come until after halftime. We had a good time though, and Syd sat on my lap.

Show the Scotsman who doesn't love the thistle!

Belated Honeymoon!

THE BEST BELATED HONEYMOON EVER!

If you would like to see more of our pictures click on these links...

HERE and HERE

Sydney and I just returned from a very pleasant trip to Hawaii. Call it our belated honeymoon thanks to the plane tickets as a gift from my parents. (Thanks again!) It was so stinking wonderful! We left on the 14th of December (the Sunday after finals week) and stayed an entire week. It was Sydney's first visit to a warm beach since she was a wee little child. And it was definitely warm.

I could bore you all with the fantastic details. In fact, I think I will.

As before mentioned, we left on our journey to the islands on the 14th of December. It was a very welcome vacation after Syd and I had just finished yet another semester of school up at Utah State. The vacation was also perfectly planned to miss the big snow storms that all of you Utah dwellers got to stay behind and enjoy!

We arrived late on Sunday night in Kahului Airport on Maui. We were then shuttled to pick up our rental car in the city we stayed in called Kihei. Our rental car, as you can see from the adjacent picture was a beauty. I told them that I wanted the cheapest car they had.
When the guy went over the rental car agreement with me, the typical blank diagram of the car that identifies dings and other scratches had just been scribbled out. He looked at me and asked, "You've seen the car haven't you? Just bring it back."



We finally made it to our condo around 10pm, and a rumbly in Sydney's tumbly said it was time for some dinner. Maybe because the last time we ate was at a McDonalds in L.A. eight hours earlier. We headed out and tried to find a fast food place that could feed these two hungry travelers.
Everything looked a little closed, but Taco Bell had their lights on, so we stopped for a taste south of the border. Upon entering the establishment, we were greeted by a shorter, chubbier, young looking hawaiian character. He took our orders in Hawaiian English (imagine a 3 year old with a sucker in its mouth) and, as we later found out, tried to tell us that the fountain machine was out of order, so our combos would have to come with bottled water. Syd then reached for her water after I had paid for the meal, and he stopped her saying, "Oh, let me charge you for the water." What did I just pay for? We decided to get water at the condo and just hope that our order was taken somewhat correctly in respect to our food. The little amigo turned to me with our food in a sack and mumbled, "Wha saus u wan wi dat?" Having had experience with poor english speakers in Sweden, I quickly replied with the sauce I desired, "Hot," I said. He repeated, "Wha saus u wan wi dat?" I again replied, "Hot." Again he looks me in the face and says, "Wha saus u wan wi dat?" By now, I'm not sure if hot is the english word I used to think it is, and maybe I've been pronouncing it incorrectly my whole life, you know, with a kind of Utah accent. So, I slowly tried to say the word as accent free as I could. "H-O-T." ...... ....... ......."Wha saus u wan wi dat?" I finally tried with, "Hot sauce," and somehow he figured it out and turned to get the sauce, threw it in the bag, and we went on our way. I have no idea what really happened in that Taco Bell on Maui that night. I turned to Sydney, and she was equally confused as to why this poor stranger could not understand the word "HOT." Either way, eating our burritos back at the condo with the fresh pineapple i cut up was a perfect way to start this vacation.

Our first day in Hawaii we decided to spend on the beach... of course. We had a mighty fine time laying in the delicious sun and boogie-boarding in the waves, as well as building magnificent pyramids, feeding birds, and taking fantastic jumping pictures, as shown. You'll also notice, if you have time to look through the rest of our pictures, that we greatly increased the darkness of our skin as the week went by. Sorry if the first pictures blind you.

On day 2 we decided to head on the Road to Hana. We stayed in the town of Kihei on the west side of Maui and Hana is all the way on the opposite side. Don't worry, there is a sweet windy road that takes you the whole way there through tropical jungle with really narrow bridges and waterfalls and sacred pools to boot. Our favorite part of the entire trip was the black sand beach found at Wainapapnanpanpanpanpan (or something like that) State Park. We were playing around acting like idiots and having a blast in those litttle tiny black rocks.








We also climbed to the top of the seven sacred pools. The pictures below are us above some a super high waterfall. We're cool.

Day 3 was pretty laid back because we got back from our trip to Hana the night before around 8:30pm. We went to the beach and fed the poor hungry sparrows. We ended up eating at Cheeseburger in Paradise in Lahaina, where a really sweet guy was playing live music for entertainment.

Day 4 we travelled to Ka'anapali Beach to go snorkeling at Black Rock. We were lucky enough to have rented a broken snorkel from Snorkel Bob's. Sydney kept complaining to me that her snorkel was leaking. (It was her first time snorkeling, so I really didn't believe her.) I kept saying, "Just put your head in the water and BREATHE." Eventually I switched her and enjoyed a throat full of salt water for the rest of our snorkel trip. (Don't worry, we got that rental for free.)
We did get to see lots of sea turtles while we were out. Three on this outing to be exact. Our underwater digital camera has yet to be developed. We'll post the pictures if we got them on film.


Day 5 we decided to take our boogie boarding to the next level and really hit some big surf! The safest beach with consistently large waves was DT Fleming Beach in Kapalua. The waves were romping. We took some fun pictures yet again with the waterproof camera that will soon be developed.




Look how delicious brown I have become. Oh, and we created some sand sea creatures. We were pretty proud of them. The beach was fun that day. The waves were big enough to beat us up pretty good and have a good time.







For the final two days we just spent time at beaches near our condo. Ulua and Mokapu located in Wailea. They are great beaches that aren't too crowded. The rock that is ahead of and to the right of Sydney in the picture below we labeled Crab Rock Cafe because of the hundreds of crabs living on its surface. Alright, there were more like 40, but still, that's tons of crabs. We tried real hard to catch one, but they were really fast and really smart. While Sydney was standing out there in the water trying to block their escape, I was climbing the rocks from the shore to try and get close to the bigger ones. I looked out to Sydney to see if she was in position, and I saw a dark shape just 5 or so feet behind her. My first instinct was that it was a snorkeler, and I wondered why he was getting so close to my wife (PERV!) when I saw the unmistakable head of a green sea turtle pop out of the water for a breathe. I immediate yelled, "Turtle! Turtle!" but Syd could somehow not see him, and he hightailed it on his way. Either way, it was cool.

On our last day we saw a beautiful sunset that only made us want to stay more, but it was time to return to the frozen tundra we call home in Utah.

We loved out trip and had such a fun time. The travel home was a bit exhausting, and we slept almost the whole day after. For all of you who read through this whole blog, I salute your diligence and endurance, and any other words that end with -ence or -ance. Except for difference.

Goodbye.