Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Another picture-less post

I'm starting to feel on top of my tutoring job now. I used to be so nervous and not confident at all--but now I totally know everything and OWN those high school punks.

Guys, I can't stop thinking/talking about The Dark Knight! Seriously. It consumes me.

Last night we had a fun dinner with Amanda and Celia. Amanda came over to work out--she's doing the 30 Day Shred with us. And let me tell you--my body is broken. For the first time in my life, I've taken drugs for sore muscles. And I wore stilettos today! What was I thinking?? I can barely walk! After our hardcore workout, we all ate such a good dinner! It was an experiment that TOTALLY worked. All I did was marinate chicken in SALAD DRESSING. The Kraft Lite OR Fat Free Italian dressing is just so delicious, it was perfect. Then you roll it in bread crumbs/parmesan cheese/onion powder/anything else you feel like throwing in there and bake it and it is just delicious! Easiest thing in the world. I was very pleased.

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I'm leavin' on a jetplane. Pobrecito Kyle is going to stay home and work. I'm heading to Arizona for a family reunion. I'm really excited because I love St. Johns, and I miss my family, and I'm dying to see Lucy. BUT I am going to miss Kyle like crazy! My visiting teacher went 3 years before she had to be separated from her husband overnight. Kyle's boss went SIX years! And it's only been two months! I know it's a little silly, but it just makes me sad to think of four days without Kyle! I guess I'm used to him or something. And...Arizona in July is going to be HOTTTTT. I'm looking forward to discomfort.

Umm my blog is boring because I don't have any new pictures...I'll have to take a lot in St. Johns. Like "Lucy at the Rodeo" or "Lucy's First Shotgun" or "Lucy Melting in Her Carseat During the Four Hour Drive to St. Johns because it's Out in the Middle of Nowhere"...

Monday, July 21, 2008

I have no pictures to illustrate this blog

It's fun to see which post in the history of your blog got the most comments. My winner is obviously the one about choosing an engagement picture--and then people wanted me to get more and more and it spiraled out of control. But 2nd place goes to a post about my cleaning habits. I guess it's exciting.

Today I watched Red Dragon on tv. Why would I do that? Ok I had a LONG phase when I really really liked scary things. Celia and I both have/had an obsession with serial killers, sick I know. I've grown out of it, and I'm helping her pull thruogh :) But lately I am scared of my own shadow. Every noise makes my imagination go wild. Things scare me a lot more and I have nightmares. So WHY would I watch that movie????

Kyle and I had a really fun trip this weekend! We drove to Cedar City and stayed in a crummy hotel and watched HBO (oh wait, no--our one night with HBO and NOTHING good was on!!!) and went to see Cyrano de Bergerac at the Shakespeare festival. It was awesome. I love Cedar City and its plays. I did, however, neglect to take a single picture of the entire weekend. Yes I suck.

Kayla: "(He doesn't know about this by the way, though he put me on the right track.) You remember that silly seance he arranged and how it ended when that girl--I forget her name--fainted? I'd asked what star the Overlords came from, and the reply was 'NGS 549672.'"--Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. Lately I'm geeky--I went to the used bookstore with Nieman and Christian a while back and bought 3 Arthur C. Clarke books for $5!

Celia got me into Fleet Foxes. I recommend them to you. Especially you, Katy. Celia and I keep meaning to tell you about them but we keep forgetting. It's music you'll like.

I bought a workout dvd--ever since we lost those Denise Austen tapes (did you steal them back Christy??) I've been without a fitness guru. I'm giving Jillian Michaels a try. I've done it once, and so far--she exhausts me. I feel WEAK. But that means something worked, right?

I love living vicariously through other people's lives. Drama, romance, intrigue--my life may be dull, but I text throughout the day to get the juicy news on other people. Sometimes gossip, usually from the horse's mouth. AND I LOVE IT ALL. So if you got anything good, send it my way. (Julie, your blog rarely fails me in that regard--especially lately, with the anonymous commenter!) My life is boring, people. I'm happily married! I need some conflict! Tell me what's going on in the real world! (Ok not the real world--the silly BYU dramatic dating/rooommate world will suffice.)

Ok I have to go shower. Hopefully Ralph Fiennes isn't about to kill me in really gross ways.

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Dark Knight, of course

Can we just talk about Batman for a second? Ok thanks.

Guys--have you SEEN Batman? If you have, I hope you noticed that it was INCREDIBLE. That's kind of hard to miss though. I kept just feeling overwhelmed by how GOOD some actors are! Namely, people who act in BATMAN. That cast is just...wow. Let's talk about that for a second.

Obviously, Christian Bale. We all love Christian Bale. We've loved Christian Bale since he was a little boy making me cry in Henry V. We love him when he sings and dances in Newsies. We love him in The Prestige, even more than we love Hugh Jackman. We love him in Equilibrium, when he blew our minds and cemented that movie in the Best Movie Ever spot. We love him in really awful movies, like Reign of Fire. We love him when he's creepy, like in The Machinist. We love him when we just hear his voice, like in Howl's Moving Castle and Pocahontas. We are waiting with bated breath to see him in the new Terminator movie, which preview I saw last night and I nearly wet myself with excitement. Guys, there are SO MANY MORE MOVIES I love because of him, too many to even mention. He is just an incredible actor! He is so talented and awesome! And I'm married now so I don't even notice how attractive he is, so you know that I am unbiased and my love for him is pure. And in The Dark Knight, I think he did a really amazing job.


Heath Ledger. We were all expecting a mind-breaking performance, and we got it. His creepiness and off-puttingness was so over the top, it was perfect. I'm glad he was SO The Joker, and not at all Heath Ledger, which would have been distracting. The way he MADE this character was just ingenious and terrifying and mesmerizing. I couldn't take my eyes off him, even though sometimes I wanted to when I was worried he was about to do something particularly nasty. He held up knives to people's faces a LOT! In short, I hope all the rumors about a posthumous Oscar are true.

I'm pretty sure if you read my blog, you know that I am slightly obsessed with Michael Caine. Is he just the kindest and best man ever? When he talks I just feel so calm and comforted! He is such a good Alfred, because it becomes apparent that Bruce Wayne NEEDS him in his life. He always just gives him such good advice and comfort. Michael Caine is the only person I can see in this role. He is amazing. I love him. I wish I knew him, more than I wish I knew other people that I'm also slightly obsessed with. Wouldn't it be fun to be friends with him? He's a knight, he's in awesome movies, and his accent is so endearing. Also, he has a hot wife.

Speaking of older men that I am slightly obsessed with, let's talk about Gary Oldman for a second. In Batman Begins, he had a disappointingly a small role. I guess that was necessary for the plot or whatever, but I'm glad that Christopher Nolan made him HUGE in this movie! So is Lt./Commissioner Gordon the man or WHAT??? Probably lot of y'all haven't seen it yet, so I won't give away anything cool. But for those of you who have--isn't that one thing he did just really AWESOME?! How great was that!!! I loved how they did Gordon in this movie. I love how HE did Gordon in this movie. I never once even cared about Commissioner Gordon--but he's a real character to me now, someone that I love and trust and actually care about. And yeah, that's probably just because it's Gary Oldman, another of my absolute favorite actors. He can do anything, I'm convinced.

I could go on. Morgan Freeman did a great job, as always, and I loved him, as always. I'm glad he had more of a role in this installment. Aaron Eckhart, who I kind of didn't really care about before I saw this movie, was great and believable and I now think he's awesome. He made me so sad, and looked pretty nasty by the end, but he did a great job as Harvey Dent. I'm not that into Maggie Gyllenhaal, and I thought she didn't even look as good as she normally does (did she look old to anyone else?), but I don't like the idea of women in Batman anyways and she didn't detract from the movie for me. Also, I was relieved that Cillian Murphy wasn't in it tons. He's too scary.

I really want to see it again already. Kyle and I went to the midnight showing (thanks to Celia!) and had a great time, despite feeling like oldtimers. So many high school kids driving me crazy! All the crazies were definitely there. And it was definitely LATE for us to be up. We got home after 3 and woke up at 6:30 to go to work--which definitely wasn't easy. Actually, I woke up earlier feeling AWFUL. I think my body was mad at me for staying up so late and eating so much candy and soda (in my defense, I did it in order to stay awake until midnight--then the adrenaline of the best movie ever kicked in and I was fine) so it decided to punish me by feeling really really really sick. I called in sick to work, but I'm going in in like an hour because I have a lot to do and I don't want it all to wait til Monday. Poor Kyle did have to go to work though, and has probably had a miserable day. If the movie was anything less than amazing I would be regretting our choices--but I think it was worth it. THAT'S how good it was! I've been thinking about it constantly, replaying lines and scenes in my head. Yeah, I'm definitely ready to see it again.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Family Time

We had so much fun last night! We went swimming with my cute cousins, and then we all ate a DELICIOUS dinner at Grandma's house.

Here are the cutest sisters--Sarah and Emma.Ben was threatening Kyle's face with a popper--every time she sensed danger, Emma threw herself around Kyle to protect him.

Emma and Sarah did hair makeovers on Kyle and me. They did a great job. Every couple seconds Emma or Sarah would put her face in my ear and make sure she wasn't hurting me. Kyle was obviously enjoying a nice scalp massage from Emma here.
I wish I'd gotten pictures of Ben and Grace. By the way, our little Gracie took her FIRST STEPS last night!!! I'm so excited I was there to see it. Grandpa is the KING of teaching babies to walk. I believe he taught Katy in Denmark, and Ben in Sweden--and now Grace in Provo!

ALSO we had some surprise visits. Uncle Kim and Aunt Shirley stopped by, AND we got to meet their daughter Emma who plays Foofa on the show "Yo Gabba Gabba", which my cousins LOVE. She talked in the Foofa voice--it was quite fun.

Thanks to a recommendation from Nieman, Kyle and I rented and watched Lars and the Real Girl last night. I really liked it! Like...yep, I loved it. It was funny and sad and charming and happy.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Creatures of Habit

Kyle's new shoes finally came! Can you tell that they're the same? Only...newer and oranger?

Our friends came over! Can you tell that they're the same? Only...nope, still the same.

July
June

Ok pretty much new post:

Things have been really fun. The 4th of July was awesome! Kyle and I decided to establish our family traditions this year:

We slept in.
We had a pancake breakfast.
We went swimming.
We ate barbecue chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and a delicious fruit dessert.
We watched Independence Day.
We watched fireworks.
We went to bed.

We've been hanging out lots at Celia's, which has been really fun. Toby LOVES Kyle--and HATES Nieman. She scares him with tranquil bird noises. Last night I played Rock Band for the first time and I LOVE it! We should have a Rock Band party at her house--and soon. You've got to see her new curtains that Kyle just made!

Kyle started his new job yesterday, and likes it! His id card is so much cooler than the one from Platinum.

We made a trip to Spring City last weekend, the land of my forefathers. It was fun to be all southern Utahy. We were going to go to the Moroni monster truck rally (that's been a dream of mine for a long time) but when we got close we realized it would probably be a couple of hicks with big wheels on their trucks...and we couldn't pass up the option of hanging out with Celia at Ikea.

It's neat that Council Bluffs and Emily are engaged! And that Caitlin and Tim are engaged! Fun fact: Tim and I have the same middle name.

This post is pretty pointless. I think I'm feeling scatterbrained. The main idea was to show the world that Kyle got new shoes that are the exact same as his old ones!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Etsy Shop Shoppin'

WELL I have a new thing to spend money on!

Katy got...an Etsy shop! The link is on her blog, and I'll work on getting one up too. Do you guys all know about Etsy shops? I kind of had an idea, but recently I've educated myself further. It's a really cool and huge website where normal people/artsy people (they are mutually exclusive) offer some cool handmade stuff and total strangers/their friends and family buy them! I explored it extensively today, and MAN it is so fun! They have the coolest things on there! So, today, I made my first purchases.

At Katy's shop, I bought this cool peacock book. If you didn't know already, Katy is a pro bookbinder. Seriously. She can make AMAZING books in a wide variety of styles. She can custom make them for you. Honestly, they are really really high quality. My family is obsessed with her books. Sorry I nabbed this one from the site--she is going to make a bunch more to sell, so you'll have another chance. (Also, they are cheap. That is why I could buy one.) Isn't it so cute? I wonder what Kyle and I will use it for--any suggestions?

I also couldn't help but buy something from Kayla. Her Etsy shop is on the behalf of baby Gavin, and all the proceeds go to his charity for his medical problems. So buying from her is for a good cause! I loved the card with this cute giraffe on it. (Don't look Katy--I'm probably going to send this to you for your birthday!) Her shop has a lot of neat stuff in it--and DEFINITELY look twice or three times at the silhouette mirrors. She just bestowed some upon me as a wedding gift, and Kyle and I are OBSESSED with how cool they are. Seriously, they are SO COOL and you should probably come over and look at them and see how awesome they are. Kyle's is so much freakishly like him that it's scary! I love buying from Etsy shops. I'll probably even start buying things from people that I don't know. It makes me feel good to support someone's neat talents--maybe because I don't have any. There are some prints and jewelry that I totally love. I'm just biding my time before I buy them! Katy is going to add some baskets (she's also a great basketweaver) and maybe some crocheted goods (she's been selling beanies and scarves since she was a sophomore in high school) and other stuff. I TOLD you she was super talented!