The Current Happenings

What's going on now? Lisa and I just went to Orlando to visit with her Uncle Terry and his family and we also saw her brother Jeff and his fiance Jackie (I hope I spelled her name right but I'm sure it's not). It was a ton of fun! I like Jeff a lot. He's really down to earth and easy to talk to. He and Jackie were nice enough to let us stay with them at their hotel so it was a great weekend! It seemed like all we did was eat! It was definitely a fattening weekend!

Lisa and I went to Magic Kingdom on Saturday and went on a few rides. It was overcast so it wasn't ideal weather for the park but didn't start raining until we were ready to leave. We looked around in some of the shops but decided to just buy food! When we first got there we went to have lunch because it was about noon by the time we actually go in the park, then we hit up Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Big Bear Jamboree (or something like that), Buzz Light Year, and the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory. The Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory was really funny actually. They have cameras up and they show different people in the audience on the screen up front and they put jokes up as well like what the person might be thinking and they showed a Mexican guy and it said underneath "I want to buy everyone churros!" We thought that was pushing the envelope but no one seemed to mind.

We continued to eat by getting some ice cream and then went and got candy apples! We didn't actually eat the apples then but we saved for when we got home to Jacksonville. We had dinner with Terry and his family and Jeff and Jackie. We were at Uno for 3 hours just talking and eating. It was nice to meet more of Lisa's family and spend some time together.

On Sunday we met up with Terry and the gang again and had brunch at Waffle House (gut grenades!) and spent some more time chatting. We were then going to meet up with Jeff and Jackie at Epcot for the food and wine festival but Jeff's friend Adam had already gotten there and he was our free ticket in. So we decided to drive out to Cocoa Beach. It's about a 45 minute drive to the coast and we stopped at Ron Jon's Surf Shop and then went and walked on the beach for about 15 minutes and took some pictures. We could see Kennedy Space Center in the distance with the big NASA logo on the hanger/building (whatever it is). After that we drove up the coast on 95 back home to reality. It was so nice to get away and spend time with family and friends. I look forward to more of it when I'm done with school.

ITALY!!!

So Lisa and I are planning a trip to Italy next year and we can't wait! We are hoping to take some time over the Spring break to go. It will be pretty expensive but we figure we won't have the opportunity to go once I'm done with my B.S. and start Graduate school because we'd also like to start a family soon so we are going to jump at the chance to go! We want to go for a week and visit Rome, Vienna, Tuscany, and other places that are rather unknown. This has renewed my desire to learn Italian as well. I took a semester of Italian in college my first year but I never took another semester or used it but now I'd like to try it again since it will actually come in handy in the future.

I'm super excited about going to Europe first but Italy is somewhere that I've wanted to go for a long time. I don't know what it is, it's just the most attractive place to me in all of Europe. I wanted to serve my mission there and that's why I took Italian that first semester out of high school and everyone knows how that worked out... I went to Las Vegas where they have plenty of Italians... well not really but they have the Venetian... but I never saw it. I have no ties there, no family that lives, no ancestors from there (that I know of), no friends have been there, it's just a beautiful mystery and that's part of the attraction!

Ahhh...married life

I've been married for almost 3 1/2 weeks now and man is it weird! Lisa and I keep saying the same thing. "It's so weird!" But weird in a good way. I love being married and I feel almost like an anomolie when I'm at school. I'm probably one of a handful of people my age at UNF that is married. Now, at BYU I would be in the majority. You're weird if you aren't married by 24 in Utah. Anyway, it's so nice to come home and have someone there that isn't another dude who welcomes you with a grunt but a beautiful woman who's excited to see you and you know how excited she is because you get a big kiss!

Now the bed sharing is a different story! Just kidding. I love being married and I thought I'd let everyone know!

How Quickly Time Flies!

So now it's September 11, 2007 and there is tons of stuff that has happened since I last posted on here. It's the 6 year anniversary of 9/11 and it seems to be that things are back to the normal way of life. The majority of people are simply going about their days, only reminded of the significance of this day by the flags at half staff and the news bits on the morning news. As the most terrible day in recent American history it is now Patriots Day and we stop for a moment of silence to remember all those who gave their lives or lost their lives on that day 6 years ago.

Most people have flashbulb memories of that day. If asked, they could tell you exactly what they were doing when they heard about the Twin Towers. I was asleep on my best friends couch but was tossing and turning and kept catching a glimpse of the tv, that was left on the night before, and thought that a movie was on when in reality... it was reality. It's the same with our parents and grandparents when JFK was shot. Most of them have very vivid memories of where they were or what they were doing. I know my mom said she was home from school because she was sick that day. September 11 just can't get enough attention for what happened.

I was listening to a morning show on my way to work this morning and they played some clips from their show that day 6 years ago and it was so hard to listen to all the actual broadcast and the fear and uncertainty in their voices. I never thought that a radio show could almost bring me to tears.

I hope that we can all remember the cost of freedom!

Ahh, Provo and Other Stuff I've Been Reminiscing, Worrying, and Fretting Over

So as I get ready to get married this weekend, and as I've settled down here in Florida, I've come to realize how much I missed being in Provo! It was hard to be so far away from Lisa and to be so far away from my family but I really like living there. Call me crazy but I miss the bubble! I loved working at Bio-Medics, well to a certain degree, and I could essentially walk anywhere I needed to (which I did the first time I lived there because I didn't have a car and I'll tell you what that's the way to get tone legs!), I enjoyed to camaraderie living in King Henry and meeting new people every day. Now it's a lot different, living in a big city where it's all hustle and hurry. It just goes to show that we take for granted the here and now and really only appreciate what we have when it's gone and no longer directly in front of our eyes or at the forefront of our minds. I loved living with all my roommates, even when they left week old dishes in the sink or on the stove with food still in them. Now I didn't like cleaning up their week old dishes in the sink or on the stove with food still in them but I enjoyed their company and the chats we had about nothing. Before all 'this' happened, my life with Lisa, things seemed so hard and at the time they were. I struggled to make enough money to pay my outrageous rent ($270, with electricity it was about $290, yeah I know how could someone ask for that much!) and try to change my diet of soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all on a $9.50 an hour job. Now my rent has nearly tripled and with even more bills it doesn't seem possible to get ahead but now I don't have to just worry about myself, I'll have to worry about my wife. My circumstances have changed dramatically but I still worry about everything. I am looking forward to starting my new life with the woman I love and am uber excited to make new memories with her, ones that will make me smile and laugh out loud just thinking about them. I have plenty of those already from before I met Lisa and I have plenty with Lisa but our life together will be filled with memories that are good, great, grand, bad, worse, and ugly I'm sure but we'll have each other and it will be amazing I just know it, actually I can feel it... in my nuggets! How could it not be with someone like Lisa!

Wedding Day is Coming

Well, well, the day I thought that would never come for me, personally, is indeed arriving rather rapidly! So rapidly, if fact, that Lisa and I are stressed to the max about getting things finished! I guess this is nothing new for the Bride and Groom but I was hoping to avoid most of this with more non-traditional events. I guess I was wrong! No wait, I know I am wrong because I am Man! I've been told on several occasions in the recent past that I should learn that now and learn it well. So from my mentors, and fathers who have gone before, I now take the "Men are never right according to women" stance.

I shouldn't make it sound as though this has been a horrible experience though. It has been a lot of fun actually. Seeing the excitement in the people's faces when we tell them we are engaged! I think it's mainly because they are surprised that anyone would agree to marry me but that's beside the point, and Lisa would disagree but I once again refer to my statement mentioned before that men are never right according to women. Lisa has been really excited as well and that has been the best part. It's always nice to see her smiling when we talk about things that we'll have at the reception or how something will be done that she's always dreamed about.