Quick Update

                So it’s been five months since we last updated. Needless to say it has been a long time! There is a lot to update on, but I’m sure I will miss a lot. Here goes nothing. Since Christmas just passed I’ll start from there and work backwards. Christmas was good for us. We ended up staying here in Rexburg and it was actually quite peaceful. Not having to travel during the holidays is rather nice. Being so far away from immediate family is hard because traveling is so expensive and stressful. We do have family here in Rexburg that we visit with frequently. Like today, we went over and helped them paint their living room and entrance way. This past weekend, we went down to Utah to drop off Caytee so she could fly home. We also visited family down there. Also on Christmas we got to Skype with Travis, Kylee’s brother. He is currently serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Costa Rica. It was good to listen to him tell stories and talk with the family.

                School ended last week and I am glad that it’s over. I only have 20 credits left which translates to two semesters left of my undergraduate but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Kylee only has a semester left and she graduates in April. Also with school this semester I worked three different jobs, so it was an extremely busy semester for me. I took 14 credits as well. I reffed high school soccer this year, it was a different experience but I rather enjoyed it. I also was the Sports Official Coordinator for BYU-Idaho sports, and I was the substitute for the Sports First Aid program.  With the sports official coordinator, I was able to officiate flag football and basketball as well as soccer. Officiating flag football and basketball was different. I enjoyed officiating basketball. In doing basketball I only gave out two technical this semester, and both were on the same night.  

                In August we got to go back to Ohio for a week. My brother got married. It was nice to go back for a while. It was good to see my brother because it’d been several years since I got to spend some time with him. It had been a year since we were last in Ohio, since our wedding. Tyler and Maggie, are now in Provo so we see them whenever we go down to Utah.

                Overall Kylee and I are doing well. We’re just surviving the bubble of Rexburg. With me being off track next semester I hopefully will be able to update more often. I will be just as busy, not only am I working two jobs, but I also have an internship here in town. It’s only ten hours a week but I am super excited about it. I’ll be interning at Rehab Services of Idaho, where they physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. I’ll be working with the three types of therapists at some point which will be cool.

                Hope everyone had a good Christmas and Happy New Year!

-N-

Here's to Summer

I live!

That’s right.  We survived the semester.  Finals are over, and we have seven weeks spread out ahead of us just waiting for lazy summer days and adventure. 

So what have we doing for the past three months?  How about a PHOTO DUMP?

The semester began with a sudden desire to take care of something.  Before I knew it, I was the sudden owner of three plants.

While I love them a lot . . . finals week may have almost killed my toddler plants.  We'll see if something can't be done to save their lives.  (This is why I am definitely not a mother whilst still in school .) 

Nathan bought some tennis rackets.  We went out to Porter Park where I proceeded to demonstrate my baseball tendencies, and Nathan dutifully chased after more than half of them like the epic man that he is.  

Apparently, I made stupid faces the whole time too. 

At some point we went shopping in IF, only to find the most gorgeous sunset.  So we chased it. 

We burned some incense, giggled over bees, and ate some delicious strawberries.  

Overall, this was the hardest semester of our lives.  I nearly died.  Nathan acted the trooper in supporting me in weeks of projects and only three hours of sleep.  (He also managed to keep his grades up and succeed in all his classes.  That's m'boy!)  

Well, we're glad it's over, and we look forward to a couple days spent sleeping deeply and diving into laziness.  Here's to summer. 

Camera Cravings

Being a creative person, I like to explore different mediums to spew that creativity out into the world.  Often times, I turn to the written world, recording stories and poems with ease as I try to understand my views in life and who I am through those mediums.  Poetry has been an especially awesome discovery in myself.  While fiction will forever be my forte, I can’t compare the beauty of spilling emotion into a well worded short form that demonstrates a good use of metaphor and imagery.  Love it.

However, lately I’ve been interested in the visual arts.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time drawing and doodling.  I’ve wanted to learn how to paint, interested especially in watercolor, although I don’t know when those interests will ever really pay out.  I really love the creative aspect to the visual.  So it would be inevitable that I would be drawn to photography. 

Over the Christmas season, I came away with an iPhone, which means the beginning of my app days.  I found the typical photo domains—Instagram, Pic Collage, Streamzoo—and became obsessed with taking creative photos that didn’t fall into the cheesy category of everyone else’s work.  And very quickly, I became one of THOSE iPhone users. 

I love stumbling upon an incredible scene and being able to whip out my phone and snap a picture.  It’s addictive, especially as I receive appreciation on Streamzoo for my creative works.  So addictive, in fact, that I’ve come to be camera crazy.

It all started when Nate and I visited Ohio in order to get married.  We went on a date to a park, equipped with my brother-in-law’s incredible Canon with this certain lens.  We took quite a few pictures, and I discovered how much I love displaying beauty in the world around us. 

And ever since that date, I have been craving a brand new, awesome camera.

Have Courage...

Warning: You may not agree with what I have to say. You may find some things awkward or uncomfortable. Read at own risk.

               
So yesterday was an interesting day. Nothing spectacular happened but it was just a usual Sunday besides it being rather gloomy outside.The interesting thing that happened is I had a realization. I wouldn't say a realization is the right word but I guess you could say a grievance. My good friend was ratted out by one of his roommates for drinking decaf coffee to his Bishop. Yes drinking coffee is against our beliefs and against the honor code since we attend a Church school. The thing that irks me is, his roommate did not have the courage to go talk to him himself but instead went behind is back and went straight to the Bishop. The Bishop threatened to go to the Honor Code office and turn him in without trying to work it out. My friend is a good kid but does have a past. Is he ashamed of it, no because it’s who he is. Has he grown from his mistakes, you bet he has.

               
Sometimes members of the church can be so judgmental and are afraid of conflict. They would much rather go to someone else to tattle on them instead of going to the person and talking to them. How is that being Christ like? At least attempt to try and talk to the person who may be struggling with something. If that doesn’t work then you may go to someone else and see if they can help out.

               
This situation reminds me exactly of what happened to me back in the spring time. Sometime last May my father got a phone call from the Honor Code Office (HCO for future reference) looking for me. My father then calls me and asks me if I’m in trouble and if I did anything wrong. I had no clue to what he was talking about. He tells me someone from the Honor Code office called and was looking for me. I ended up calling HCO back and seeing what they wanted. They said that I needed to come in and talk to an advisor. I asked them what for, and the lady said she couldn’t tell me why. At least point I was starting to panic. I had just turned in a paper the previous day and I was worried that somehow I was caught plagiarizing my paper. To my knowledge I hadn’t plagiarized and cited all my sources. I was stressed out as to why I needed to go to the H.C.O.  My roommate then called me and asked me if I got a call from the HCO. At this point my two other roommates started to worry as to what we did. We all went to the HCO together cause our appointments were right after each other. When I got into the advisors office he said that they got reports that we were having girls over when nobody else was home, that we were watching rated R movies and that we were out past curfew consistently. Needless to say, I was very upset to be accused of these things. Yes, I did have Kylee over when nobody else was home because well there was only 3 of us in the apartment. But I always had the front door open and people walked by our apartment all the time. The advisor and I got into it a bit because I disagreed with him because he was trying to be holier than me. For instance, he brought up watching R rated movies and I told him I had a couple of classic movies that were rated R. He said that I should just either throw them away or send them home. Anyways point of the story is, we had a roommate that lived with us then decided to move out and he’s the one that ratted us out. He didn't talk to us first.

               
My thing is if you have an issue with how I am acting come to me first and tell me. I may be upset at first but I am understanding and willing to work with you. But if you go behind me back then my respect for you decreases tremendously. At that point, it will be harder for you to talk to me. In general I am a very nice guy unless you do something stupid to make me angry. Those of you that know me know that I don’t get angry very easily that it takes a lot to make me mad at a person. So once I was done meeting with the HCO I was fuming. So lesson from this is, have courage and talk to the person that you have issues with. YES, it will take courage but they may have more respect for you if you come to them first than going behind their back. I know I will.

               
So we’ll see what happens to my good friend but when he told me this it got me thinking. It got me thinking that I am grateful that I am married. Sorry to those of you who aren’t married, your time will come. I no longer have to worry about roommates who might tattle on me. I have my wife who understands me and supports me. I still have a curfew because it’s in the Honor Code but I don’t have roommates who will lock the door on me if I’m late, or rat on me to the Bishop or the HCO.  I no longer have clean checks weekly or bi-weekly. I can have a female over to my apartment when I’m home, don’t worry it’s my wife. Marriage life is much better in general. You still have stress in your life, but it’s a different kind of stress than when you’re single. School is much more enjoyable now than it was before.

             
Change of subject. Another thing that my mind wandered to today was the taboo subject of sex. Why is sex such a tabooed thing within the Church. Yes, people shouldn’t have sex before they’re married but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. Why can’t we talk about the joys of sex within the confines of marriage? Sex is such a wonderful thing when done properly. It can bring a couple closer together. They have the ability to pro-create. Now Kylee may not agree with me sharing this (I’ll deal with the repercussions later), but to nobody’s surprise her and I do have sex. We enjoy having sex. Don’t worry I’m not going to share all the details or how often we do it nor will I ever. That is our own personal business but we do have sex. I feel tabooing sex does more harm than good for the youth. Yes, sex will always be something that people struggle with. I feel that if we talk about sex more and not taboo it, then it may become less of a struggle. People won’t get all awkward as soon as the topic of sex is brought up. That is just my opinion and you may disagree but that is what is awesome about this life. We can all have our own opinions.

               
Another taboo subject within the church is people who struggle with Same Sex Attraction (SSA). Now I will be the first to say I don’t fully understand it. I do support the Prophet and the Apostles in their teachings as being called of God. It's great that the church recently came out with a website that deals with the subject. If you haven't visited the website I suggest you do http://www.mormonsandgays.org/.  I recently came across a blog that is written by a gay member. He has struggled with SSA for multiple years. When I found his blog, I spent about two hours just reading through his posts. I learned a lot just from his blog. I have gained a little bit of knowledge from his posts. Why is it that we has members outcast people that suffer from SSA. Aren’t they still our family? Aren’t we taught to hate the sin but love the sinner? Before reading this post I thought SSA was a choice that people could help it. But after reading it my view has changed. I don’t think it’s a choice per-say but a challenge given by God. I do however believe how a person chooses to act is a choice. They can choice to participate or not. Like I can choose to look at pornography or not even though it may be a struggle in my life.

               
I want to thank David Peterson for opening my mind and teaching me a few things. If you want to learn more about SSA or know what it is like for an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who struggles with SSA, you can visit (Gay) Mormon Guy. I have permission to use David’s name and attach the website because he wants to help others understand people that struggle with SSA. He is a good writer and has some powerful posts and insights.

             
I know this is a long post. I have been meeting to write a post recently but haven’t gotten to it. Today was just one of those days where things that happened just push you to write. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Also I hope that your view of me hasn’t changed too much, but if it has I’m not going to worry about it too much. There are far greater things to worry about in life; such as what am I going to eat for breakfast?  Just kidding about the breakfast but in all seriousness there are such as am I doing my best to please God?  So lesson of this post is Have Courage. Have the courage to: confront people when a conflict arises, talk about sex properly, and support others in their struggles.

Relaxation

So with the stresses in our lives we all have our different escapes. Cleaning the house, exercising, writing, puzzles, sports, watching tv, listening to music, reading books. There are a variety of ways. I haven't been too stressed lately but with having a night time job and not being in school currently I spend a lot of time in the apartment during the day. There is only so much watching of Netflix and Hulu one can take. So I have my ways that I relax and one of those ways is putting a puzzle together.

I really enjoy working on puzzles. A couple of weeks back we were at our friends apartment and they just finished a puzzle. Since that point I wanted to work on a puzzle. A week later I went to the local DI and bought 3 puzzles. There is always a risk in buying puzzles from DI because you never know if there might be a piece missing. The total cost of the puzzles was $3.75. That is a steal if I do say so myself.

Now that I have 3 new puzzles I started on one immediately. I started with the ocean one because it has dolphins which happen to be one of my favorite animals. But, also it is a round puzzle which I had never done before. Round puzzles can be a little difficult because some of the pieces aren't actually square or rectangle like usual. They are pieces that are rounded. I would mostly work this puzzle whenever I would feel like working on it or when I needed to escape from stress. Majority of the time I would work on the puzzles after I would get home from work at night. I have been working on the puzzle for the past few weeks. Last night I finally finished the puzzle. I spent about 3 hours on the puzzle last night. There is just something about escaping into the world of solving puzzles. You begin and before you know it, 1 hour has passed, then 2 hours, then 3 hours. It is also really satisfying when you find pieces that fit together and you are just on a roll. That happened last night, one piece after another piece. Of course you come to a point where it seems that you can't find any pieces that fit together. That also happened. Here's the final product.

But it is extremely gratifying and satisfying once the puzzle is completed. It's a great feeling. Now onto the next puzzle. 

Being married to an English major who loves to write stories, it's hard to compete. Now Kylee and I don't really compete when it comes to writing because it is a known fact that she is much better at it than I am. She is always writing. She is also always developing characters for future stories. But I have found out that writing for me is a way to relax as well. I don't write full stories like she does. I tend to lean towards poetry. There is something about putting words onto paper. I wrote a poem back in July one night, but the first draft was not very good. Since then I have edited and rewrote it several times. I have gained a lot of respect for writers because of all the revisions that has to be done just to get it up to a decent quality to share it with others.  It is still in the revising stages but it is almost finished. I'll give you a little sneak peak. 

Here's a couple of lines from it. 

The soothing waterfall

infiltrates the whooshing of the fan.

The water’s pulse

trickles down the rocks,

--N--

We're Back!

    And we’re back!!!!!! I know that it has almost been three months since we last wrote a post. There have been requests that we update you all what is going on in our lives. So here we go. The past few months have been super crazy. I am going to do my best to catch you all up to speed on what has taken place in our lives as of late.

     In December I was still in school finishing up the semester. Once the semester was done with we headed to Mississippi to spend Christmas with Kylee’s family as it was probably the last time we will all be able to get together for a while cause at the time Travis was preparing his mission (He has since left and entered the MTC). We spent a lovely 10 days there. It was very nice to get away from the cold to warmer weather, but it was also nice to get out of the bubble of Rexburg for an extended period of time.

       January came and Kylee started school. She’s taking 15 credits and still working early morning custodial. She is wonder woman because I definitely cannot get up that early and work and then go to school all day. Because she is taking 15 credits and working from 4-7 each morning she is a very busy woman. We don’t get to see much of each other between our schedules. I am still the lead official for futsal (soccer) this semester. I work from 6-11 Tuesday through Friday. Kylee also goes to bed between 7:30-8:30 each night then gets up between 2:45-3:30 depending on if I am driving her to work or not.

      On Saturday Kylee finished all of her homework early so we got to spend the day together. This rarely happens. Up to this point she has always done loads of homework on Saturdays just to catch up or it was due the following Monday. Anyways since she got done with everything, we decided to head out to buy a couple of things that she needed for Choir. We went to DI to look for a gem colored shirt but to no avail. We then decided to take a trip down to Idaho Falls. It had been a while since we had gone shopping there. We ended up finding a shirt at Target, but we also went to other stores while we were down there to look around. Since we were in Idaho Falls, we decided that it would be good to get together with our good friends Kris and Drea since they now live down there. We invited them to go to Buffalo Wild Wings (Bw3). Surprisingly I was the only one that has ever been. I had been craving their wings.

    While there we just talked and caught up and enjoyed the atmosphere. I honestly wish Rexburg had a sports bar of some sort besides Apples Bees. This whole small town isn’t really suited for my type of personality. Anyways after we left BW3s we went our separate ways and Kylee and I headed over to Walmart. We need lactose milk for me and Great Value mac and cheese. The stuff is really good and Kylee is somewhat addicted to it. Being lactose intolerant isn’t all that fun. That is because most sauces and things like that use milk with lactose or cream in them. Both of those make me sick if I eat too much. So we have to cook with my milk just so I don’t get sick. That means we go through milk rather quickly because they don’t have lactose free milk by the gallons. They only have half-gallons and Walmart brand is the cheapest. But anyways we went to the milk section to grab some milk. To my surprise and delight, they had Chocolate Milk!!!!!!!!!!!!

     This is the first time I have ever seen lactose free Chocolate milk. Usually when I want chocolate milk I have to make it myself, which is another reason why I go through milk so quickly. I have been craving chocolate milk a lot lately. Also Kylee and I have been trying to eat healthier and save money while we eat. We would usually go through almost 2 loaves of bread a week. That can add up quickly. So we decided to buy a 25lb bag of flour and make our own bread. Let me tell you, it is so much better than store bought bread. Usually Kylee makes it on Sunday morning because it’s really her only free time and we don’t have church until 1 in the afternoon.  Today I made the bread. Not only do we make our own bread but we also make our own tortillas when we need them. Those are incredibly easy to make and are a lot tastier than store bought ones. We had Chili Verde for dinner tonight with tortillas. Best part about the tortillas is the recipe says it makes eight semi-large tortillas but Ky and I like small ones so instead of eight we can usually get twelve out of one batch. We make six and then freeze the other six for a later time.                            

 This is the bread before it raised. 

 This is the sixth tortilla that was rolled out with the other six about to be put into the freezer bag. 

 

       Overall Ky and I have been really good. We’ve just been super busy like I said. We will try to write more posts often. Right now I’m pretty sure Ky won’t be writing much because she is so busy with school. If you want any of our recipes let us know. We do have some good ones. 

    As of this posting the bread was not finished baking.

-N-