My Favorite New Game

For years I have always looked much younger than I am. And for years I hated that. To date when people see my mission photos they say stuff like, "Did you go on a mission at 16 or what?" And while on the mission everyone always thought that I was the junior companion. When I got done with BYU I was so excited to grow a little facial hair and finally look a little older. It's true that people have largely misjudged my age for year. But I am now to the point that I'm really enjoying this.


A few weeks ago my friend invited me to double with him and his girlfriend, who was visiting from Idaho for the weekend and with her roommate. I had no idea how old the girls were and apparently the one I was "with" had no idea how old I was. During the evening I mentioned something about my age. Ryan's girlfriend looked at him like "I thought we weren't going to talk about this!" And she looked a little panicked. Ryan then informs us all that they didn't tell her how old I am. You see I am 40. Ryan is 36. His girlfriend is 28. And the roommate is 24! Before the ages were revealed though I played my favorite new game: Guess My Age. She guessed I was 33 tops.

Today I went to shop for a new car. After a little small talk with the salesman, he had determined that I might know the owner of the dealership because he went to Orem High School also. Once again I played my favorite new game: Guess My Age. The salesman thought I was 28! He did a double take when I informed him that I'm 40. But it was a good sales job. I wanted to buy the car right then and there. :)

So the moral is this: for all you young ones out there (I'm not sure there are any young ones reading this) don't worry when people think you are younger than you are. Because one day that is really going to work for you.

An Evening with Adele & James Morrison

Several weeks ago a several friends and I decided that we wanted to go see Adele & James Morrison in concert. I created an event on Facebook right away and got everyone invited. And being the procrastinator that I am I never tried to go buy my ticket until the Saturday (Jan 17th) before the show. So I was shocked and saddened to find out that the show was sold out. Once again my procrastination had not paid off. When will I learn?! I sent out an e-mail to everyone I invited and told them that the show was sold out. And what I found was that most of the people were procrastinators also. Fortunately Lindsay, Lexi, Molly, and Mitch were smarter and picked up tickets early. I still had hope that I could find something on craigslist or ksl.com. When that didn't turn out, my new best friend, Mitch, said he'd let me have his ticket which was incredibly nice of him. But that is just how Mitch is. Plus he wasn't all the excited to go to being with. :) Still very nice of him.

So last night (Jan 23rd), I picked up Lindsay, Lexi, and Molly. We headed to Murray to see the show at the Murray Theater. On the way we stopped at Pei Wei to eat some dinner. It was great. We need one of the those in Utah County. After dinner we drove up the street to the show. The timing was just right for not missing the show. But unfortunately I was not familiar with the venue because we really should have been there much earlier. Just a few minutes after getting there James Morrison began the show but we were barely able to get in the doors of the auditorium. I could barely see him and I'm the tallest of our group. We did eventually find a better spot by going through the north doors. When we switched sides, Molly overheard that if you bought James' new CD you could meet him after the show and have him sign it. So I was all over that. We both bought CDs and when we thought he was about done, we headed over to where we could get backstage. While we were waiting Molly spotted none other than the David Archuleta coming down the stairs from the box seats. I tried to get a photo once it registered. Molly became a 12 year-old girl again, screaming "David, Hi." He turned and waved with his trademark grin. Made her night. Molly & I were the first of the group going backstage. I was already with my camera too. I wasn't sure they would allow photos but I wasn't going to ask either. After we met James and got our photos taken with him. The promoter was telling everyone that there wouldn't be group photos because there wasn't time. Good thing we were first.

We went back in the auditorium to watch Adele. This time we decided to try and work our way down to the 2nd level. After some work we got there and the view was much better. We just had to make sure people were not stepping on Molly's foot since she just recently broke her leg. Adele was amazing. Her voice is just as great in person and it was nice to see her personality. During one of her songs she forgot the lyrics and it was pretty obvious. Before the next song she apologized saying basically that she only has one album and that she should be able to remember the lyrics. It was cute. The show was great. Glad I got to go. Thanks again, Mitch!

There are some videos at the that bottom of the this entry that I took of a few performances. The video is not great but the sound is pretty good.

A Sweet Night of Guitar Hero

So back during my work Christmas party I got a gift certificate for a season family pass to Thankgiving Point. In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a family of my own. So I traded it to another guy who was going to buy a family pass anyway. In return I got a gift certificate to Sundance. That was much better for me. But then I realized that my brother buys a season pass to the cross-country track at Sundance. So he bought my gift certificate and in exchange I bought Guitar Hero. Perfect!

Anyway, my friend, Lindsay kept on asking when she was going to get to come play my new game. So I thought why not make a party of it. Then I remembered that she is on a sugar fast. No sugar for two weeks. Ughh! So being the super supportive friend that I am, :) I decided to make it a theme for the evening. So you could bring snacks as long as they were sugar free. I provided diet sodas, almonds, sugar-free pudding, sugar-free jello, sugar-free cool whip, and pretzels. Some other friends brought a great veggie tray and dip and dried mangoes. The mangoes had sugar but we pretended.

We had a great time rocking late into the evening. I just hoped my neighbors enjoyed it as much as me. :)







Those attending: Me, Lindsay, Anna, Molly, Colette, Mitch, Rob, and Eric. Thanks for coming!

Draper Temple Open House

Over a month ago I was on Facebook (shocking, I know) and I noticed that one friend's status said that she had just got reservations for the LDS Draper Temple open house. I didn't even know that they were available yet. But I quickly checked out lds.org and before I knew it I had reserved 10 tickets for the first day of the open house. I thought this would be a great activity for the singles FHE group that I belong to. I created an event on Facebook and invited a bunch of singles to attend. I was surprised at how fast the reservations were taken up. So I went back out to lds.org and reserved a few more tickets just in case. In the end I had 14 reservations and we ended up using the initial 10 that I reserved. I don't think it really mattered because no one checked for tickets or the number in our party. In any case I thought it was a great turn out!

The tour starts at one of many churches in the Draper area. There you watch a very short video about temples and why they are important to us as members of the LDS church. After the video we boarded buses and were shuttled to the temple.

The inside of the temple (as well as the outside) is beautiful as you would expect. Things that seemed to strike me were the use of naturally stained wood and lots of it. The whole temple seems to have more a nature feel to me. The furnishing seemed to be quite modern compared to what I expected but at the same time the were very classic. It seemed quite small compared to some of the other local temples but then again I'm not sure how much of it we really saw. All in all, it is a very beautiful temple. I'll be interested in going back once the open house is over but that is not for another two months I believe.

I took a camera and meant to take photos but you cannot take photos inside the temple and the whole time you are outside the temple you are in a heated series of tents. The only chance for a photo of the temple would have been from the bus. Oh well, these photos from the church's website will have to suffice.

After the tour most of us went to Applebees for a late dinner or desert.

Waiting Room

Decor Detail

Art Glass with Sego Lily Motif

Ordinance Room

Ordinance Room

Celestial Room

Celetial Room Ceiling Detail

Bride's Dressing Room

Sealing Room

Art Glass Window

Side note: The art glass through out the temple was done by my good friend's (Gayle Terry Holdman) husband's (Tom Holdman) shop.

Those attending: Me, Jaree, Molly, Kristine, Melissa, Lindsay, Mitch, Anna, Heather, & Marianne.

How Do You Give Yourself Ear Drops?

Last Friday my ear started to hurt. I was telling my mom about it. You know how moms like to inspect these things. So I let her check it over. She couldn't see anything wrong but suggested that maybe I had an earache. I haven't had one of those since I was a little kid. The thought would have never even crossed my mind. (Apparently!) After a few days of trying some herbal remedies and endurance, I decided to go to the doctor. And sure enough I have an ear infection causing the earache. So I was reading about the drops that have been prescribed for me to use. I have to get two drops in my left ear twice a day. Not only that but I need to make sure that the dropper doesn't touch my ear or else it will no longer be sterile and could introduce infection. So this is my big question: How do I (living alone) give myself ear drops twice a day without the dropper touching me ear? And how do I make sure that I get two drops? No really, how do I do that? Any ideas are more than welcome.

Try

This week started out rough for me. I was feeling down on Monday and future wasn't looking so bright for me. It wasn't really something that I could explain if you asked me to.

Fortunately through a series of events, I was able to snap out of it. Several of those events involved good friends both old and new. And as I was awakening from my depression, I was at work playing some music. First, let me tell you that I am not a "lyrics" guy. Normally I hear a song and rarely do I remember or even notice the lyrics. I was listening to a song I have heard dozens of times if not more. But this time I was hearing the lyrics and they were speak to me about me. The song entitled Try is by Lisa Loeb and here are the lyrics:

What’s the difference between you and me?
To me it’s kind of small, to you it’s like a prison.
What’s the difference between you and me
To me it almost happens, to you it almost isn’t.
How did you become so sure?
Your girlfriend never smiles, no one ever calls.
You begin to wonder if they were your friends at all.
You frown, you take a look around.
You shout, this’ll never get better.
But the doubt that you grow in your field is sprouting
turning your field into into a deeper valley.
You’d find
the mountains aren’t so high
if you’d only try
to do better
9:33 in the traffic at the stoplight
somebody hits you, nothing ever goes right
in the gridlock, nothing ever goes right.
But it’s just a little scratch, not a permanent scar.
Just a tiny dent, you don’t need a new car.
Just a little mess, your dreams aren’t shattered.
You climb up while I hold the ladder.
You’d find
the mountains aren’t so high
How many times I’ve tried, how many times I’ve missed and I’ve tried.
How many times I’ve tried, how many times I’ve missed and I’ve tried.
When everything’s so difficult, I feel so low
I find a better view on the other side of the window.
So that’s the difference between you and me.
What it you believed that the grass could grow
up through the snow, it’s possible
You’d find
the mountains aren’t so high
if you’d only try
to do better than get by

If you want to listen to the song you can go to lisaloeb.com

I decided that I had been pretty negative about a lot of things and as a result had lost my hope. The thing is that I have plenty of positive in my live and that I should be focusing on that. So, I'm going to try to do better...

The I Dos

Last week I was over to my parent's house and noticed a great non-traditional wedding announcement. As I found out, it was for my cousin's oldest daughter. I know she had a quirky sense of humor but I thought this was perfect. And today I was doing my daily blog stalking when I found out that another cousin actually designed the announcements and a third cousin took the photos. Do I come from a talented family of what?! Anyway, I thought that some of you would enjoy seeing this. I love it!