One Year Down, Eternities to Go

Yesterday, Julie and I celebrated our one year anniversary. We went down for a short weekend to St. George to celebrate. By short, I mean really short. We got there late Friday night and left Sunday. In between, we mostly watched March Madness. Julie blames me, but she was obsessed with checking all the scores to make sure her bracket was still winning in my Dad's office pool. We also went to Olive Garden to act like high rollers...but when we got there the polygamist from "Sister Wives" was there with his newest wife and we were so distracted by our weird fascination with him that we did not talk that much (that and my mouth was constantly full as I devoured about 10 bread sticks. They said all you can eat, and I took it as a challenge). Overall, it was just nice being with my sweet honey and reflecting on the year we've had. In honor of the 10 bread sticks I ate, I'd like to list my ten favorite things about Julie.

10- She is an excellent cook.  She makes the best meals as you can tell by my ever expanding waist line (it probably doesn't help that I haven't worked out in months).
9- She really listens to me; even to random stuff I forget about. A few months before my birthday, I mentioned how I once had the Beastie Boys anthology but it had been stolen in high school (possibly by a kid at West, possibly by a brother, possibly by my Mom). Then, to my shock, she had gotten the CD for me for my birthday.
8- She at least pretends to take interest in the things I like. She will come with me to ball games, action movies and plays the Wii with me simply because she loves me. I try to do the same in return (her interests, I mean. I don't show my love to her by asking her to do things only I like). 
7- My family loves her and she is good to them. I often think my siblings, parents and grandparents are more enamored with her than me. It doesn't bother me; it leads to more free meals for me. But, when my dog, Aggie, started being more interested in her than me, that was a bit touchy.
6- She makes an excellent sugar mama. She has been excellent at supporting me through school, but still lets me "pay" for our dates with her money. 
5- She is feisty. It is something that attracted me right off the bat to her when I would tease her and she would dish it right back. She doesn't let me get away with anything and I find it very attractive.
4- She knows my love languages and utilizes them. She knows how much it means to me to receive a hug/kiss and to be complemented for something I'm doing. She does these things often. 
3- She has a close relationship with God. She talks to God as a friend and she is one to Him. I am sure she prays often for me to not do stupid things and I think it has worked; since I've been married my stupid decisions have been cut down drastically.
2- She has the greatest sense of humor. She makes me laugh all the time and we have tons of couple jokes. The majority of these jokes would be very dumb to most people, but she can make me laugh at any given time.
1- She said yes to being my wife and sticking it out with me. It's been a year and she says she's still not even tired of me. I love her more everyday, and I'm sure that will only continue to grow throughout the years. I love you, Julicious. 

Goodbye, Sweet Friend

  First of all, before you read this post, I want you to know that it's highly sentimental...and it's about a dog. I am an absolute sucker for dogs: I love them. I didn't end up taking most of the philosophies of my neighborhood of birth: like God doesn't exist unless it's one not worshipped by Christians, Joseph Smith is Satan (if Satan existed, which of course, if you're from the Avenues, he doesn't), being in a heterosexual marriage is so yesterday, etc.  However, people from my neighborhood are crazy about dogs, and I am, too. But, one dog in particular had her paws wrapped around my heart.
   My Mom loves dogs, as well, but my Dad is more picky. So, when Mom said she couldn't stand not having a dog in the house (our family dogs all had passed away), Dad flew out to Texas to pick out a sweet little Field Spaniel. Immediately, everyone in the family was enamored with this loving, affectionate, and feisty dog we named Aggie. Aggie was such a cute puppy. She had ears way too big for her little body and so when she would run down the stairs to greet us, it wasn't uncommon that she would flop down them after tripping over her ears. When we took her for walks, when she got tired, she would just plop on the ground and expect whoever was walking her to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way. As she grew to maturity, she became less outgoing with strangers but we could not have asked for a smarter and more fun dog. When we first got her, I had hurt my back and she would just lay with me for hours and spend time with me. She truly was the best friend I had for quite some time.

Aggie, in the middle, with her siblings. Such a cute puppy.

Aggie trying to fit into our kitten's bed. She thought it was comfy, for some reason. 

Yes, the Cannons are your weird neighbors who view their dog as part of the family.

Like weird people who think their dogs are part of their family, Aggie celebrated birthdays with us.

Aggie couldn't believe it was me, so she was cautiously optimistic when I came home. Or, she didn't recognize me because how fat I had become. 

   I eventually went to college and then on a mission. While I was on my mission, I missed my family but knew that they were proud of me and happy with my decisions. So, to be honest, I missed Aggie more than I missed anyone else. I worried that she wouldn't remember me or that she would (like dogs do) eat something toxic. When I got home, she was fine and we had a great reunion. She couldn't believe it was actually me and I thought she was going to wet herself from excitement. That's one thing I love about dogs; they always make your day because whenever you come home it's like the greatest moment of their lives. Every time I came home, I would pet her and hang out with my friend.
   While I was in Virginia doing my interviews, though, I got a call from my Mom that Aggie had been having seizures. We thought the meds they put her had fixed the problem, but when I got home, she started having more. On Monday, March 7th, we had to put Aggie down. There is nothing like putting down a beloved family dog to make grown men weep like babies. It was sad to see her go, but it was nice to get to say goodbye to a good friend. And it's nice that Joseph Smith was an animal lover like me, and said that animals can go to the Celestial Kingdom. Here's hoping that I live my life right, so I get to see my dog, again!  

How Do You Know? You Don't, Not 100%

      I had a friend today tell me about one of his best friends getting dumped because his fiancé was not “100% sure” that he was the right person for her.  I felt that was kind of strange; has anyone ever been 100% sure about the person they’re going to marry?  I highly doubt it.  To me, that takes away the exciting leap of faith that is associated with marrying someone.  It also makes it seem that strong marriages are guaranteed because of compatibility rather than being earned through dedication, conscious choice and sustained effort.  However, this did get me thinking about what attracted me to Julie in the first place and why I decided to marry her.

      The first time I saw Julie, I obviously thought she was beautiful.  How could I not?  But, there was something deeper, too.  I had seen lots of hotties before that I was more than content looking at from afar.  With Julie, it was different; I remember when I saw her I had the strange thought, “I wish that she was my girlfriend.”  After days of begging, my friend finally gave me her phone number and I called her up.  From the minute I picked her up, it was very easy to talk to her.  A lot of this probably came from the fact that she had been on millions of first dates, but there was a comfort I felt around her that I rarely feel around people when I first meet them.  We enjoyed talking to and being around each other.  Pretty soon, we became boyfriend and girlfriend.  We knew that we liked each other, so we started talking about important things to see if we could be with each other for the long haul.  Already knowing I liked being around her and that I could see myself enjoying her forever, I started to ask about her view on family.  It sealed the deal when she shared her views about her excitement to be a wife and a mother and that family was the most important thing to her.  Her was this beautiful, intelligent, educated, fun, funny and kind woman who did not think it a burden or a sacrifice to have a family.  Though I am not really any of those other things, I too think family is the most important thing and have never really understood why men or women think career choice and advancement is what makes a person successful.  I guess I learned that to a large extent from my parents, who always put us first even though they have been successful in other pursuits.  So, I said to myself that she was beautiful, had a testimony, wanted a family, and I loved her; that was more than enough for me to make the choice.  I did not really even have to ask God about whether it was right. 

     Still, with all of these assurances, there I was on March 19^th (late the night before my wedding) vomiting out of nervousness.  I guess the point is, no matter how much you love somebody, there are no guarantees and marriage has never been “easy.”  I hope this girl who was not “100% sure” about her fiancé that she will never find a man she is 100% sure about, but that she will find a man she is 90% sure about and have a happy, long marriage to him.  If you want, write me about how you knew you wanted to marry your spouse.  To me, it felt good writing this and I am fascinated about why people marry.      

Before I met Julie, this could have been my song. 

1 Down, 3 To Go!!!

On Friday, I had my first graduate school interview with the University of San Diego. My Mom drove down with me and we had a fantastic time listening to each other's stories, talking about our funny relatives (like my Great Grandpa saying repeatedly after his wife died, "God don't want me, Satan won't have me and Louise hasn't made up her mind, yet. That's the only reason I'm still here") and of course, throwing on some Beastie Boys. 
  We got there on a Thursday afternoon. My Mom doesn't trust modern technology, so she did not believe the GPS was taking us the right way. She made me change the route, and I accidentally told it to avoid all freeways with carpool lanes. The only route it could come up with was to take me up to Sacramento and back down. Fortunately, common sense won out and we just continued on I-15 until we got to our hotel: The Vagabond Inn. It wasn't as ghetto as you would expect from its name. We mostly just hung out that night from fatigue and watched the World's Dumbest Competitions on TV. We did have to make a stop to the liquor store right next to us, because as Mom points out, "it always has the coldest Dr. Pepper." 
   Finally, my interview came. Mom and I stopped at Starbucks and got what we decided were the worst scones and bagels, ever. That's what we get for eating at the Devil. I got to my interview 20 minutes early and thought I was impressive...until I saw that I was the last person to get there- stupid overachievers. Everyone was real nice. There were only 4 guys, including me. So, I thought it was going to be easy until I realized how talented everyone there was AND that the other three guys were minorities (I felt like the scene in Modern Family where Cam and Mitch are beat out by the interracial lesbians, one of whom is in a wheelchair).

I love Catholics!!! And their buildings! This is the Chapel on USD's campus.

  Overall, I felt the interview went well. The teachers and all the other people I talked to seem like really good people. It was an interesting interview process; three small group interviews broken up by going like sheep into a big room to wait for the next interview. I secretly wonder if they had video cameras watching us interact in those rooms.
   After the interview, Mom and I went to Old Town in San Diego; it's basically a little Mexico. It had excellent Mexican food (I got these HUGE plate of nachos with Mexican sausage. Not exactly good food to eat before you go on a ten hour drive). These two older Latino guys came and played an hour long song (seemingly) in Spanish right into Mom's ear. That was fun (for me). Finally, we were on our way. It was a great trip except for one thing: no Julie. I couldn't stop thinking about her the whole time and wanted to be back in snowy Provo as soon as I could. Home is where the heart is, I guess.

Cuz you can't, you won't and you don't stop! Home is where the woman who bought me these guys' anthology is.

It's the middle of Winter, it's February, and I like laying down in front of the TV, okay?

So our apartment complex cut off our cable a few months ago, without warning.
LAME.
And because we didn't want to pay for something that we are still technically paying for in our utility fees, we haven't gotten it again.
Luckily, we have Netflix, and have the Instant Queue through our Wii <-- if only I got paid for product placement, right?
I like the instant queue for many reasons, like no commercials, getting to watch a bunch of previous seasons of TV shows that are no longer on Hulu, and its kind of random assortment of movies (old and pretty new). One thing I do NOT like, however, is how often it cuts out. If I have to see "Retrieving...." one more time, I might lose it.
Wow, tangents, sorry.

What I really wanted to write about are the TV shows that I'm kind of addicted to. And how much it STINKS when you have  watched everything from a show, multiple seasons even, and then catch up to the current season and have to wait an ENTIRE week to watch the next episode. Will someone please explain to me why my interest in a show diminishes somewhat when this happens? If I can't watch an episode every night, then the comedic value/interesting story lines/character development doesn't seem quite as interesting a week later.

Again, I digress.

Here we go. Shows I am addicted to. Dylan is addicted to the first two, but the third is pretty much all me.

1. Modern Family

-This one has the best clips. The other two are whole story lines, and less one-liners, so they were hard to find clips for.  Seriously, these clips make me almost pee my pants. I laugh SO hard at them.
Characters:
Jay and his second wife, Gloria, and her son Manny.
Jay's daughter, Claire, her husband, Phil, and their children Hailey, Alex and Luke.
Jay's son, Mitchell, and his partner, Cameron, and their adopted daughter, Lilly.

2. Lie to Me

-We actually haven't quite caught up to the current season of this, so we're still good! We're on season 2 (please, no spoilers!). This is such an awesome show - so original. They solve cases, but unlike most detective shows, it only deals with murder or crimes some of the time. The Lightman Group works on any case where someone needs to find out if someone else is lying, and what they're lying about. They use the science of deception detection to discern the truth. It's fascinating. At first we were afraid that it'd get kind of repetitive, showing the facial expressions and body language over and over again, hammering it into the ground, but they have done a superb job of developing their characters, having intriguing story lines, and always having interesting twists and unexpected conclusions. 

3. Bones

-I had only watched this show here and there on TV, when it was on, but I started at the beginning and watched the first 5 seasons (season 6 is current), and am hooked. I find their process (forensic anthropology) so fascinating, and often riveting. I actually learn stuff by watching the show! I am hooked on the characters, too. There's no one I don't like on it, which is amazing for me to find that in a show, and there is always something going on in their personal lives that they develop. Sorry about the bad clip, but it's all I could find. You'll just have to watch it, I guess.




If you haven't seen any of these shows, seriously....why not?
If you have, what do you like/dislike/find interesting about them?