Reflections on Our Wedding Day

One year ago today I woke up after a restless night of attempted sleep and went to the temple to get married. The morning leading up to the temple went by in a blur. I was so tired and the event was so surreal, I felt like I was moving about in a daze. But though I was tired, I was calm.

When Jon and I got to the temple, we had some time to just sit quietly together. Still, I was feeling pretty dazed. But then, we walked into the sealing room to get married, and that all changed.

I have never before or since been in a room filled with such tangible love. One look around the room and my heart immediately swelled up with more love--for and from those around me, both physically and spiritually present--than I have ever felt in my life. There with us in the room were so many people who were important in both Jon and my life. Friends, college roommates, Sunday school teachers, young women's leaders, mission presidents, and--most important of all--our family sat in every seat and filled every corner. It was packed not only with bodies, but with memories of time spent with each of these loved ones, and with gratitude and love for God for placing each one of them in our lives.

Then, Jon and I both knelt at the altar in the room so that we faced each other and the love I felt in my heart grew even more. Jon and I were getting married! And as Jon knelt there across from me and I contemplated on the goodness of his character and the love in his heart, tears started to quietly fall down my face. I loved the people in the room. I loved the man kneeling across from me. And I loved Heavenly Father for bringing us all together in such a special and holy moment.

That love resided with me throughout the rest of the day, and it resides with me still. I'm grateful for power of marriage and families. It enables me to do more than I would on my own because I'm constantly buoyed up with love and support that I know won't run away when things get hard. It fills my heart with joy and peace because I know that someone's always there thinking about me and helping me and having my best interest at heart. It gives me more motivation and purpose in life because things aren't just about me--they're about us. 

I'm grateful for the strength God has given Jon and I to learn and grow throughout this first year of marriage, ultimately bringing us closer to Him and each other. I'm equally grateful for a spouse who supports and laughs with and lifts and cherishes and ennobles and teases and teaches and works with and loves me every single day.

Happy one year, Jon! I look forward to an eternity more with you.

Home Teaching with Jon

Yesterday Jon asked me to go home teaching with him.

(Sidenote For Those Who Don't Speak LDS Lingo: home teaching is a program the church has where the men in the church get split into pairs and then assigned several families to visit each month. It's our way of looking after each other and making sure that everyone's taken care of!)

I said: Sure, I'll come home teaching with you Jon!

And so we went. The visit itself was fantastic! The five minutes before was awesome too, but in a very different way. I think it's a good example of what being married to Jon is like. This is how it went:

We park in front of the family's house. Jon goes to get out of the car.

Me: Wait! Shouldn't we say a prayer first?

Jon: Eh, I guess.

Me: You're supposed to! (Okay--so I admit: no official church handbook says you're "supposed" to say a prayer before home teaching, but I've heard from lots of people that it's a good idea!)

Jon: Not necessarily...

Me: I'll say it.

We fold our arms, bow our heads, and close our eyes.

Me: Dear Heavenly Father, please forgive Jon for being so grouchy about wanting to say prayers before going home teaching, and please bless me for being so awesome and righteous for wanting to.

Jon: HEY!

Me, laughing: Please be with us as we home teach and let us have an enjoyable visit. We say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

We get out of the car, Jon making some remarks about the inspired words in my prayer, and then we start heading towards the house.

Jon: Oh...

Me: What?

Jon: I parked on the wrong side of the block. The house is over there...

Commentary: What Jon means here is that he actually parked on the wrong block all together. Did I mention that it's raining?

Me: Are you serious?!

Jon, laughing: This is what you get for your prayer!

Me, (Ignoring the previous comment): Come on! Let's run! I'm cold!

We start running. We get to the next block over. After going to the wrong house, going around to the one next to it (which was also the wrong one), walking accross that person's lawn, realizing that we're on the evens side of the street and not the odds, and running accross the street, we made it to the right place.

Seriously, guys--we could have walked to their place from our house and it would have taken less time. But the visit was great, and Jon is too, and I'd be willing to run around looking for his home teachees' place in the rain with him any day. Good thing that it's too warm to snow in May and that it doesn't snow much in Washington.

SHE'S HERE!!!

Friday was the day I've been waiting for for a long time.

IT WAS THE DAY JESSICA MOVED TO UTAH!!!!

See--look! This is me picking her up from the airport!

I've been so super excited to have her come live in the same town as me so that we can play and so that when I have free time and I don't feel like being productive and Jon is gone and I have nothing to do I can hunt her down and be annoying to her and it won't even matter! Also, it's soooo nice to have a female family member back in my life in person. Jon just doesn't get it when I say "How 'bout we just sit and talk?"

We celebrated the night by taking her to one of our favorite restaurants--El Gallo Giro. I ordered a burrito and they brought me a tortilla stuffed to the size of a baby.

Trust me--this picture doesn't do it justice.

Of course by the time they brought it out, I was already so full of horchata that I barely had room to fit any of it inside my belly.

I ate most of it.

When we got home, we initiated Jessica into the house by playing several rounds of Monopoly Deal. I won the first three games and Jon won the last, though Jon will tell you I really only won two out of three because the first round was just a practice round and he wasn't really trying his hardest. Apparently, Mr. Pride couldn't face the truth.

It's going to be an awesome summer!

The Story of Jon and Lindsey: The Second Date

As I previously mentioned, after our first date, it was all I could do to not find some way to spend every spare moment I had with Jon. I was trying to not be obvious that I liked him, but that pretty much failed. We were having lots of fun together, and I'm a pretty forward person so I didn't mind if he noticed I was falling for him (or let's pretend that I didn't mind). The only problem was that he wasn't asking me on a date! And I know I could have asked him on a second, but when you're kinda' clueless as to how the guy feels and you're the one who already asked him out on the first, you want him to be the one to ask you out on the second to see some reciprocation of feeling.

A few weeks after the first date, Jon and I were both at our ward's treat night (Ward Treat Night: Mormon singles ward gathering that occurs every Sunday night wherein sweets are consumed and members of the opposite sex stalk one another to find/wish for a potential date for the following Friday). I went up to him and asked him what his week looked like. He told me. Then, being polite, he asked me what my week looked like. I told him. Did I happen to casually make note in my brain that both our Friday evenings were free and that if he liked me he'd be smart and ask me on a date because that'd be the coolest thing in the world?

Naw. But for some reason, when my roommate later asked me on Monday if I was free to have a girl's night on Friday, I found it really hard to say yes (after all, you can't say "No, I have plans," when you really don't have plans, but are kinda' hoping that you will have plans because you happen to know that a guy you like could ask you out on that day if he wanted to).

Then Tuesday came, and Jon was helping me carry a microwave into my apartment and set it down on the counter where I wanted it and turned around and asked me if I was doing anything on Friday.

"Ah.....yes. Friday. Yes--I actually do already have plans then. Sorry, mate! Why? Did you need help re-configuring the plumbing in your apartment or something?"

That is what I should have said. Except for maybe the part about the plumbing. But that is not what I said. Instead, this is what happened:

"Hold on one minute." Lindsey whips her phone out of her pocket and turns around, her back to Jon. She calls her roommate.

Ring....Ring....Ring....

Roommate: "Hello?"

Lindsey: "Hi, Roommate! How's it goin?"

Roommate: "Good! What's up?"

Lindsey: "You know that girl's night thing we were going to do on Friday?"

Roommate: "Yeah."

Lindsey: "Could we possibly do it on Thursday instead?"

Roommate: "Sure!"

Lindsey: "Okay. Awesome. I'll see you when you get home then!"

Lindsey turns back around and faces Jon. "Looks like I'm all free on Friday! What's up?"

Luckily, he really did want to ask me out on a date and not just for some help with his plumbing. And so Friday came and we had lots of fun! It was simple: we just made some treats and ran them around to some people, but it allowed us to talk and get to know each other better. At the end of the night when we were wrapping things up at his apartment, he asked me to hold on one second and then went back into his room. Whatdaya know, but out he came holding a bouquet of tulips for me. "I just thought it was sad that you've never received flowers from a boy before," he explained, referring to a previous conversation.

I've never thought that rescheduling a girl's night could be a bad idea since, and looking at how things went from there, I don't know if I ever will.

Update: After reading this blog post, Jon was quick to remind me that once we started dating, I mentioned to him that I had touched his arm on this date and was impressed because of how big his muscles are. You can see that the details he remembers are slightly different from the ones I take note of. He is currently hiding under the coffee table with embarrassment as I write this, but isn't embarrassing your spouse one of the better parts of being married? Jon disagrees.

The Story of Jon and Lindsey: Our First Date

Who knows if Jon and I would have ever ended up together if Rylin Patterson and I hadn't become friends. Winter of 2013 was a hard one for me. I felt like I was failing at everything: failing at being relief society president, failing at being a good roommate, failing at being a good older sister, failing at becoming an English teacher, failing at living healthily, failing at being a good friend, and any other failing out there--I was doing it. I was feeling pretty down and sorry for myself, and for some reason--after a random night of going to see "Wreck It Ralph" at the dollar theater with a group of people in the ward--Rylin decided to be my friend. It was random, and I was a bit confused about who the heck this short and often weird guy was, but I wasn't complaining because suddenly I felt like I had a friend.

One night I was at his house and we started talking about all the awesome things we wanted to do that summer and decided that we should make a summer bucket list. So we did. We had something like 50 items and he titled the top of the page: "The Most Awesome Summer Ever" or something like that. After finals week ended, Rylin and I were sitting down, looking over our list, and trying to figure out how to start off our summer (though technically I guess it was still spring). Earlier, I had admitted that I thought I needed to start going on more dates than I had lately and he was all over the idea of doing a double, so we decided to mark off our Hike the Y and Watch a Sunset goals and to make it a double all in one whammy the following Saturday. Rylin was anxious and excited because he already knew who he wanted to ask. I, however, had no clue who I was going to ask, but figured that with all the new people moving into the apartment complex for summer term, that I could find someone.

I don't remember most of the details from the beginning of the next week, but I do remember that Rylin pestered me just about every single day to see if I'd gotten a date yet--because he had!--and I just had to keep telling him that: "No, Rylin, I haven't. But I'm trying!" Which was true. There was a new guy in the ward that I had thought about asking, and had maybe even tried asking...but due to some circumstances, it just wasn't working.

Wednesday evening came and I still didn't have a date. The time to ask was escaping me, and I still had no clue who to pop the question to. It wasn't that I was afraid to ask a guy out (been there, done that), it was just that I sincerely had started to lose interest in dating and if I was going to go to the effort of asking someone I wanted it to be at least a semi-successful evening.

Enter Jon Paul Self:

-'Bout 6 feet tall
-Lean
-Dirty blonde hair
-Brown/green eyes
-Horribly handsome
-Ubber righteous
-Avid BYU fan
-Frequent ESPN stocker
-Lover of watermelon and doughnuts
-Professional napper
-That guy who likes to make jokes in his prayers
-The man of my dreams

You know the guy.

But I didn't. In fact, I had barely figured out his name. Jon belonged in this conglomeration of roommates that were super close and ran around together having fun all the time. I knew all of their names: Joseph, Eric, Kelly, Kyle, Alex, and Jon...I just didn't exactly know which name went with which face. Except Joseph. I knew him. There were so many times over the past year, since Jon had been in the ward, that I would see him on campus and call him the wrong name. Our gym schedules seemed to be the same, so it usually happened there.

"Hi Eric!"

"Actually, it's Jon."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, hope you're workout's treatin' you great! See ya later!"

Super romantic, right?

As I was saying--Enter the horribly handsome Jon Paul Self: dressed in a white shirt and tie, coming from the parking lot and happening to pass by where I was sitting on a bench, on his way to his apartment.

I thought I'd be friendly.

"Hello, Jon!" I called.

He paused at the sound of my voice and looked up. "Hi, Lindsey." He came over to where I was sitting.

"You look mighty nice," I commented. "Where you coming from?"

"I just came back from the temple."

This was the point where my conscience tugged at me and I remembered that in addition to working on my dating life, I was also trying to work on going to the temple more. So far, I'd gone approximately zero times. My excuse? I didn't have a car, and had been too lazy to walk the mile and a half there thus far.

"The temple?" I repeated. "That's cool! I've been wanting to go to the temple sometime soon, but I don't have a car and haven't been able to find a ride." I forgot to mention the part about me being lazy.

"I'm going again tomorrow and wouldn't mind giving you a ride."

In the excitement of a prospective ride, my mind totally skipped over the oddity of him going to the temple two days in a row and I cheerfully responded with: "A ride would be awesome!"

(The reason Jon was going to the temple two days in a row was because he was just coming from having an interview with the temple president to help with the work that goes on there. He was planning on attending the following day to attend for himself.)

"Okay," he replied. "What time works for you?"

"I get off work at 5...Would 6 be okay?"

"Sure."

And then as he was walking away I remember thinking to myself: Self: this kid doesn't seem like that bad of a guy. Maybe tomorrow when he gives you a ride to the temple, you could see if he's free to go on a date this Saturday at 7:30pm. 

And that's what I did.

And he said that he was free.

And I could finally ward off Rylin's: "Have you gotten a date yet?" with a: "Why yes, Rylin. I have."

But let's be honest here: I wasn't expecting much. I mean, sure Jon was horribly handsome and pleasant to talk to, but he and I had been going to church in the same ward for the past eight months--most of the time with me not even remembering his name--and nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. I wasn't even terribly excited for the date.

Saturday, May 4th, 2013 came waltzing around and I found myself sitting in Rylin's kitchen talking with him at 5pm, about two-and-a-half hours before the date. I don't remember what we were talking about but I do remember that Adam Beus--a friend in the ward--dropped by to talk because he was going to join us with a girl at the date too.

"Who are you going with?" he asked me.

I told him "Jon," and his reaction was so strong and immediate that it caught me off guard.

"I approve!" he exclaimed. "Jon is a really good man."

Three hours later, I didn't need Adam telling me that Jon was a really good guy. Two-and-a-half hours later, however, the date had yet to begin and I was not feeling too pumped. I distinctly remember not wanting to go on the date because I was in the middle of having a really good conversation with my friend wherein I was trying to figure-out the woes and troubles associated with thinking that you're failing at everything in life, and the date was interrupting it.

But I hauled myself away and picked Jon up at his place. We met up with Rylin, Adam, and their dates, crammed into Rylin's car (there might not have been enough seat belts...good thing Jon's bum is small!) and made it up to the start of the Y trail head.

And so we started hiking.

And started talking.

And I accidentally started falling for the 6 foot tall, blonde hair, brown/green eyes man whom I'd been calling the wrong name for the past eight months.

No big deal.

Legit picture of Jon and I on our first date sitting at the top of the Y!

I just remember loving the way I felt with Jon. As previously mentioned, I'd had a hard winter. I was feeling down and as a result, had turned into this somewhat fake person in order to feel like I could make myself fit with people without letting them see the mess that was inside. But with Jon, I felt like my old self again. I felt calm and understood. Above all: I felt the Spirit, and it felt awesome. After the first ten minutes, Jon stopped and apologized for talking too much about church stuff and said that his friends always teased him for making everything about church. I picked my jaw off the ground and reattached it to my skull so that I could say that my friends also teased me for making everything about church and that I didn't mind it one little bit and that he definitely shouldn't be apologizing. I remember talking that whole entire date and not once feeling like we struggled to have something to say and that it was just so easy to be with him. We had so much in common and just kept saying: "Me too!" 

The date came to an end and we got back into the car with everyone else. On the drive down, we started talking with the other couples again (everyone had paired off while on the mountain). As we drove, I frowned as I paused and considered the words coming out of my mouth. Back with everyone else, I was being that fake version of myself again. It was such a stark contrast to the way I felt for the two hours just Jon and I had talked. I didn't like it. I wanted what I had when I was with just Jon back. I wanted to be a better person.

I didn't admit it then--even to myself--that I liked him, but deep down I knew I did. I tried to attribute it all to feeling like I once again had hope with my dating life. But within the following weeks--after coming up with reasons for him to take me to the store and to go to the baseball game with him and to talk with him at treat night and to coincidentally be wherever he also happened to be--it was very obvious that all hopes in regard to my dating life were targeted very pointedly at one man, and that I was trying very hard not to hope too much for a bulls eye for fear that I might miss.

Luckily, Jon asked me on a second date.

Cooking, Spiders, and A Fun Weekend

I have a bad habit when it comes to blogging. It's called "I go forever without writing and then when I finally get around to it I feel like there's so much to say that I'm afraid to say anything. And so I don't." Hence, I have not written anything over the past few months. But it's time to try again!

Looking over the past few months, there's SO much that has happened and so much that I wish I could say, but out of all that's transpired, there are two moments that stand out that I really don't ever want to forget. They're both about Jon, and they both still make me laugh whenever I think of them.

The first has to do with making him lunches. One night for dinner we had soup. I asked him if he'd like some of the leftover soup for his lunch the next day and he said something along the lines of: "Very much yes!" So I took the leftover soup and put it into three different containers. The first was a small one, with one cup of soup in it for me. The second was a container twice the size of mine with at least two times--if not three times--as much soup as was in my container. This one was for Jon's lunch. The last container was two to three times bigger than that container, and it's the one I put all the soup that was leftover into.

The next day came. On my way out to work, I told Jon that his soup for lunch was in a container in the fridge. He acknowledged that he heard, but later that day when I got home, Jon's soup was still in the fridge. Jon wasn't around, so I couldn't ask him about it. I figured that he must have just forgotten to take the soup with him for lunch. It wasn't until I realized that the ginormous container--with all the leftover soup in it--was gone that I realized what happened. He'd taken the wrong container. The one with at least four servings of soup in it! As soon as he came home I asked him about it, and this was his reply:

"I took the wrong container? Oh. Really? Man! Well, I had no problem eating all of it!"

This story serves as a perfect example of how eye-opening it's been for me learning how much food a man can eat in one given day. Which reminds me of another story...

One day we were driving in the car and Jon just randomly started laughing. When I asked him what was up, he said: "I was just thinking about how crazy it would be if what I ate actually affected the way I looked and felt."

Part of me really hopes his metabolism catches up to him latter in life and that he gains 50 pounds. Not really, but kind of.

The second story happened one night when he and I were sitting on the couch at the end of the day. He was doing homework, I was doing something quiet, like reading a book. Suddenly, Jon leaps off the couch and flies to the other side of the room, hysterical.

"What?" I inquire.

"Diggs! Look!  THERE'S A SPIDER HANGING DOWN FROM THE WALL EXACTLY NEXT TO WHERE I WAS SITTING!!!!!"

Some Necessary Background Information For Those of You Who Do Not Know Jon Well: Jon hates spiders. A whole lot. When we got married, I gave him a "Jon's Spider-Killing Kit" in hopes of helping him overcome his fear. It was no use. I'm the spider killer in our family, which I'm okay with as long as he's willing to kill all the snakes (and heaven help me if there's ever a snake in our home! We will move to a different STATE the day that happens!) 

So I start laughing my head off while Jon runs frantically into the other room. "Jon?" I gasp out, between laughs. "Are you getting a tissue to kill it with? Or do you want to give it to me to kill it with?"

Instead of replying, he comes running back into the room, and before I realize what's happening he's spraying Raid bug killer all over the hanging spider until it falls onto the couch, at which point he sprays half the couch in attempt to squelch the life out of the poor little vermin.

After exclaiming: "Stop! Stop!" multiple times and coming next to his side, I finally calm Jon down enough to get him to stop soaking the couch in poisonous bug spray. The spider was definitely dead by this point. "Diggs!" I exclaim. "You just sprayed half the couch with Raid!"

"That monster was going to kill me!"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, are you going to get a piece of toilet paper to pick the spider up and throw it away now?"

"Heck no!" he exclaimed, standing up to go put the bug spray away. "That's your job!"

These two experiences are just glimpses of the crazy happenings of married life with Jon. It just keeps getting better.

This weekend was pretty awesome too! Jon and I wen to see The Young Ambassadors on Friday evening, and then I spent the rest of the weekend cooking....homemade rolls, two loafs of homemade bread, white chicken chili, enchiladas, and cookies. It's been pretty awesome. To top it all off, this morning I got to go to my lovely friend Amelia's homecoming talk with my other friends Rachel and Lauren. It was so fun to be reunited as old roommates and to reminisce about old times. Good stuff.

And as for those papers I was supposed to finish grading this weekend...

Me and Myself

Today marks two months of marriage for Jon and I. That being said, I suppose it’s about time that I share our story: how we met, how we started dating, how he proposed, and all that other fun stuff that people like to know. So, without further ado, here it is:

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Lindsey who met a boy named Jon. The two of them fell madly in love at first sight and, after a couple of dates, decided that they would try dating exclusively. Their dating life was perfect: nothing but romantic picnics in the mountains at dusk that faded away into Hollywood-worthy evenings underneath the stars. Every moment with each other was bliss and the two of them couldn’t recall a happier time in their lives. Because everything was going so perfect, the two of them decided to get married. The date was set, everything fell into place, the marriage happened, and the two have experienced nothing but more joy and love and everything else perfect ever since…

…Except for that’s not at all how it happened and any suggestion that Jon and my dating life was perfect is farther from the truth than the South Pole is from the North Pole. Heavens, no. Dating Jon was most definitely both the most fun and most stressful thing I have ever done, and trying to decide whether or not to marry him was even more so (emphasize the stressful part on that one). And while I could sit here and paint for you the most perfect and wonderful picture, telling you only about the good and leaving out the bad, I want to be more real with you than that. Why? Because there’s this stigma in our culture that tries to tell us that dating and marriage and relationships in general are happy and easy and wonderful and that if you’re having a hard time with yours, it must be wrong—get out fast—jump ship. And while a happy and healthy relationship will provide you with more joy and wonder than anything else in life, my experience begs to differ with any person or movie or book or television ad that suggests that falling in love and getting married is only the ease and the joy and the wonder. It’s not. It may vary from couple to couple, but every couple experiences their own share of heartache, hard times, and struggles. Before I started dating Jon I knew this. I expected it. But even though I knew it would be hard, I wasn’t prepared for how hard it was or for what kind of hard it was. As a result, I spent much of my dating experience confused over whether or not things were hard because dating is hard or because dating Jon was hard, and therefore, probably not meant to be.

I want to paint a realistic picture of what meeting and dating and breaking-up and getting back together and getting engaged and (finally!) getting married to Jon was like so that other people in relationships can know that they’re not alone in the crazy inward battle over whether or not things are meant to be and so that they can also know that when things are hard it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong. Because it’s such a long story, or rather, because there’s so much to say, I’m going to be breaking it up and posting bits and pieces of it over the next several weeks. I have no idea how many parts it will end up being, so I guess we’ll just have to see how long or short-winded I end up being. Regardless, take our not-so-fairy-tale-perfect love story for what it is, for even though it’s not tidy enough to end up in the pages of a fairy tale, Jon and I still regard it as the most wonderful love story we’ve ever heard of. Of course, we’re biased, but that’s okay. It was perfect for us and gave us both what we perfectly needed: an opportunity to grow, some heartache, lots of laughter, a search for identity, a chance to draw closer to God, and—above all—it gave us each other. 

(to be continued...)

"Don't Use Fake Last Name"

Today in Jon's technical writing class, they all brought in a copy of their resume, hung them on the walls, and then walked around and edited each other's papers. When the activity was over and Jon got back his paper, this was written on it:

I've heard many puns about my new last name in the month and a half that I've been married. For example, today in one of my classes we were learning about the 6 types of conflict and the kids thought it was hilarious when we couldn't decide if a scenario we were studying about a student and a teacher was an example of character versus character or character verses (Mrs.) Self. It was awesome.

This comment on Jon's paper, however, might be even funnier. We don't know if the culprit was serious or just kidding. Either way, it made our night.

Homework Time!

Tonight after FHE I was cleaning up things from our activity so that Jon could get started on some homework ("Do you have lots of homework tonight?" I'd asked him..."YES!!! LOADS!!!" or something like that was his reply). After I cleaned up FHE I went in the kitchen and got out things to be productive so that I could make good use of the time while Jon was getting homework done. In the middle of all this, Jon got up from the table and disappeared into the living room. I didn't think twice about it, assuming that he was going in there because it was cooler and he'd been complaining all night about how hot he was.

The culprit...the game "Wordament"

I wrapped up working on something and then, realizing that I needed my iPad for my next task, got up and started looking for it. When I walked into the living room I found Jon holding my iPad. At first, I was confused. Then, as I walked up to him and asked: "What are you doing?" I realized what was going on. Jon looked up at me like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar--guilty, cute five-year-old smile and all. He was not doing homework. No. He was playing a word game app that he's been addicted to for the past month.

My brain could not take it in. This is my husband, and I feel like I'm walking up to a kindergartner! He just kept smiling up at me with that guilty, five-year-old smile as I exclaimed: "Aren't you supposed to be doing homework?!" and then I just burst out laughing. It is one of the most ridiculous/endearing/hilarious things that Jon has ever done. And when I tried to take the iPad away he said, in his best five-year-old voice: "No!" and then I started laughing again. So much for the "LOADS" of homework.

Yes, I realize that this story is probably ten times more funny to me than to any of you, but man--if you could have just seen his face...At the very least, I think I can adamantly claim that Jon has mastered the following scripture:

“…Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” –Matthew 18:3

Our First Camping Trip

Two and a half weeks ago, Jon and I thought we'd be proactive and plan a camping trip. We'd always talked about how fun it'd be to go once we were finally married, and now we were, and so we were gonna' make it happen. We figured out the details, got the materials together, and were excited to go!

Day of: Grey clouds. Cool breeze. I tell my students I'm going camping and one of them says: Isn't this weekend supposed to have the coldest nights of  the summer so far? Weather forecast said rain. Things are looking just dandy.

I called Jon to see if he still wanted to go. He was already sick, after all. He gave the affirmative, and I agreed that it would be a fun adventure, so at 6:05 pm Jon picked me up from work and we were off, headed up into Payson Canyon. For the most comically lame camping trip of our lives.

We got to Maple Lake, the first campsite we had looked up online, and decided to check out the one after it instead of settling. One full campsite and thirty minutes later, we found ourselves back at Maple Lake hoping that there was still an open place. Around 7:45 pm we found a place we liked, set-up tent, and finally thought that we had some time to breathe, eat, enjoy nature...

Upon going to pay for our site, we discover that we're not really set-up at a site. Rather, it's a picnic spot for day hikers. Should we try to move? We spend five minutes trying to find the campsite owner to talk to him about it, decide it's too late, and that we'll just hope we don't get kicked out.

As we start building a fire to roast our hot dogs over for dinner, it starts to sprinkle. Rain. Pour. We give up and go sit in our tent to eat the hot dogs cold (Jon refused to eat one...too gross, and he has a point) along with the buns (which Jon ate plain), yogurt, and trail mix. This can still be fun, we think...just playing games and eating snacks in the tent.

The only photo from the whole trip: Jon feeling
very well rested and dry on the way back home

Things only got more interesting. The water falling from the sky turned from a "pour" to a lightning-and-thunder-stick-your-fibia-outside-for-two-seconds-and-you're-drenched-head-to-toe (how does that happen when you only stick out your fibia?) type of rain. It was insane. We forewent the games, read our scriptures, tried to go to sleep, found out that the "condensation" on Jon's water bottle was actually a leak in the tent that had been gradually soaking his cotton/cloth sleeping bag, tried to squeeze together for the night in my sleeping bag (which had a water-resistant outside), froze a little, heard a wild animal outside our tent in the middle of the night that I thought was eating something alive and might come eat us next (it didn't), and then finally got out of our tent at 6:45 am, packed up the mud encased/water drenched tent, and left. Less than 12 hours after getting there and after having done essentially absolutely nothing, we were gone.

Most of the whole ordeal was a pain, but there were still definitely moments of laughter, and now we have a very original "first married camping trip" story to tell, especially for two experienced outdoors men like us.

A week-and-a-half later and the tent still hasn't been washed off. Don't tell my dad.

Juice, please!

Tonight, after reading our scriptures together, I pulled out my laptop to write a blog post while Jon got off the bed (the only piece of padded furniture in our apartment at the moment), and left the room to go do some stuff for class. As soon as he left, I thought that a drink of juice sounded nice, and figured that since he was up and goin' and I was down and sittin' that he might possibly be kind enough to get me some.

"Hey, Jon! Would you mind doing me a favor?"

First, he exclaimed: "Hot turds!" which was followed by laughter and: "What do you want me to do?"

"What's so funny?"

Laughter. "It took me forever to get out of the room and then as soon as I finally did you ask me to come back so that I can do you a favor."

Well. Um. I guess I didn't think my request through as well as I should have? Live and learn?

"So...do you still mind doing me a favor?"

"What?"

"Could you maybe possibly please get me a cup with ice and some juice in it? It just sounds really good right now!"

He stares at me for a few seconds, eyes twinkling. "Sure!" he exclaims, turning around and leaving the room.

As I sit on the bed, I hear laughter and then dead silence.

I start to feel an inkling. I'm suddenly reminded of all those times growing up when someone asked me for a cup of water and I'd bring it back with only a few drops or with hot water instead of cold because it was pretty much the funniest thing on earth.

Oh no.

Sure enough, a minute later this is what walks through the door:

Oh gosh, Honey, you shouldn't have.

At least after he came back with enough juice in the cup to satisfy a normal human, he very cheerfully said: "All you need to do for a refill is say: *Ehem* Refill, please! and I'll get you a refill!"

Is this him preparing me for kids or just introducing me to the husband?