The Graduate (not a movie)

I guess it’s time I return to the world of family blogging and add my two cents to the blog. I thought it had disappeared, but apparently, Nate enjoys having his venting space. Which is good considering the lack of communication I have with the outside world. People will know that I still exist.

I guess too much has happened to try and update everyone, so let’s go with something random and slightly big that happened recently.

I may have graduated.

This entailed a whole lot of family and friends and love and happiness, at the risk of sounding utterly cliché. I got quite a few thoughtful gifts that have not only made my life easier but have brightened it considerably.

Gift from the in-laws, my family who couldn't make it. 

I'd removed all the foliage by this point to get rid of the styrofoam.  

The best part was all the family, though. Not only did I spend time with my darling sister . . .

But I spent some time with my grandparents . . .

And, most importantly (no offense to other family), I got to see my parents!

I was happy, at least. Nate, unfortunately, had to put up with family pictures in which he had to be a part of some of them against his will.

Spectating Family: That's cute. How about a smooch?

Spectating Family: Um... okay. That's close. How about that real kiss. 

Spectating Family: Wait, where are you going? We want a kiss picture. 

[The mature married couple, ladies and gents.]

Poor kid.

He survived, though. Managed to start his hardest semester yet just this past week. Meanwhile, I’m at home, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life. Wondering why I no longer have to go to bed at eight, while still celebrating the end of my job and schooling. It’s a bit empty. I’ve filled the day with job search, N64, and Doctor Who binging.

Time spent playing a kids game is always worth it.

 

What am I doing with my life?

Oh dang. 

We’ll see where my life goes from here, but really I just need money in order to, you know, survive. So here’s to hoping I’ll find a job fast. Plus, I'm beginning to come out of recharge mode. My apartment may suffer my sudden need to be productive. 

Unfortunately, this also might mean a lot of pictures like this:

Got to practice that creativity

And lonely dance parties to all the EPIC music I found recently from my high school days:

Shout out to that Within Temptation group.

And maybe some blog posts updated on my other blog. It's going to be a place where I talk about how I am an excellent author who makes a million mistakes. So, you know, go there if you're at all curious if I can actually write. 

This has been kceratops, signing out and good day. I'm going on a date with my husband. 

Confession Time

So I have a confession to make and don’t worry it’s not a super serious confession. But in high school I hated running long distance. What I shocker I know, you’d think that I would enjoy running since I love soccer. In Jr. High I ran cross country but I wasn’t the best at it. I just did it to be around my classmates and to be outdoors. But recently I have started to really enjoy running. I go in spurts of running. There will be weeks where I run quite often and then several weeks will pass and I won’t run at all. There is just something about running and having music playing in your ear that keeps you going. Also just the ability to think while running is quite amazing.

Last semester I took a health appraisal and prescription class and one of the requirements for the class was we had to run a 5k with our client at the end of the semester. Up to this point I don’t think I had ever run more than two miles in my life at once. But there is just something about a competition that excites you and keeps you motivated to keep going. The 5k was tough on me physically as well mentally, but I will say my body started to shut down before my mind did. It was at this point that I just had to push through the pain and my body screaming at me to slow down and walk. I believe to be a pretty mentally strong person when it comes to those things. I mean I did tear my ACL when I was 14 and I came back from that. But after the 5k I felt really good and decided that my next goal was going to be a half marathon. I felt really good but I was also extremely sore at the same time, it was one of those good sores though; know what I mean.

I also need to run more often so I can get in better shape in general but also for soccer season that is going to be upon was rather quickly. I also tell myself that I need to run to get in shape for soccer but it never happens. I mean I don’t play soccer a whole lot anymore but I ref instead and I think there’s more running in that than there is in playing. I also tell myself that I need to run more so I can improve my VO₂ max. But that hardly motivates me though as well.

When I do go running I tend to prefer to run outside because who doesn’t love fresh air and the scenery. In the winter months it’s rather hard because of all the snow and ice. I find that I actually run a lot slower when I run outside during the winter months. I don’t necessarily like to run the treadmills because you don’t go anywhere but BYU-Idaho has an indoor track which is nice because even though it’s inside you at least go in circles. When I do go for a run I usually take my phone and I listen to Itunes radio with it on the pure pop station. I don’t have a lot of music on my phone but I find that the pure pop station offers just enough variety of music with an upbeat to keep my pace up. I also use Nike+ to map my runs and to tell me how far I have ran. Recently I have tried to run for at least 30 minutes each time. Sometimes I accomplish that and sometimes I don’t. It depends on the day. I like the Nike+ app because you can add your friends and see how you’re doing compared to your friends which also adds an element of competition along with accountability. They recently, (not so recently about a month ago but I just found out about it today) that they have Coach+. Coach+ helps you with your training if you are going to run any type of race. They’ll tell you when to start and how far you should run each day all the way up to race day.

Today I decided that I was going to go play futsal up on campus and there were a lot of people there. I played several  games but towards the end the team I was play on would end up losing with five minutes so it wasn’t fun anymore. Plus I had already been there about two hours playing so I was getting tired of it. At this point I decided that I would go run to end my night. So I grabbed my headphones, my phone and my armband which holds the phone. I then decided that I was going to run for 30 minutes because then I would be meeting ACSM guidelines. It’s amazing the things you do once you learn them from class. Before I stared running I thought this isn’t going to be very pretty because I was already tired from playing two hours of futsal but I figured I could fight through the physical break down. About ten minutes into my run my calves and knees were beginning to hurt, along with my gut because I wasn’t well hydrated. But I just fought through it all, it’s all mental. Everything is a mental game. When I was coming up on my 30 minutes I was close to three miles. I was closing in on the 30 minutes, I decided that I would run just a little extra so I could complete another 5k.

With that being said, it was while I was sitting down putting on my stuff on that I thought about how good I felt overall after my run. So when I got home I was looking at my Nike+ of my most recent run and was making adjustments to it. Once I was finished with that I found out about the Coach+ and decided that I wanted to run a half marathon. In the app it asks you the name of the event and the date of the event. I realized I needed to find a marathon that I could participate in so I could have an attainable goal. It was then I remembered that Rexburg has a several race events in the summer. It’s called the Teton Dam race, they have a 5k, 10k half, full marathon and a relay marathon.

So my goal is to run in the Teton Dam half-marathon on June 14, 2014.

Does anybody want to run it with me? I think it’d be fun to have a group of us that runs it. Shan? I know you read this blog and you like to run, just think it could be a mini vacation for you and your family all the while doing something you enjoy? If anybody does want to run it with me, let me know. If no one wants to run it with me that is ok as well, I’m still going to do it. Here is the link to the Teton Dam website and all the information, Dam Marathon.

 Here is the map of the half marathon. 

Also let's be honest saying I ran a Dam Marathon is rather fun and you can get quite the looks from people. 

-N-

Happy New Year!

Want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Hopefully you enjoyed the first day of the new year. Do anything fun? Kylee and I went over to our friends place last night to celebrate New Years Eve and the New Year. We played games and ate food, the typical activity. One of the games that we played was called Ticket to Train. At the end of the night, we had a blast playing the game that we had to borrow it from Jen and Adam. When we came home we ended up playing 4 more games, going bed about 4:30. Then we played several more times in the afternoon. In total we spent about 8 hours of ticket to ride. What a great way to spend the new year. It's rare for Kylee and I to find a game that we both really enjoy and can play several times.

Here are some pictures.

Also I started a photo a  day blog, it's one of our goals is to use our camera more often and do a photo a day. I'm not sure if Kylee will post photos on my new blog or if she'll start her own. But right now it's just me posting to that blog. Click the link.Nathan's photoblog and it will take you to the new blog.

Make 2014 your best year and best endeavors!

-N-

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.