grateful for Carrie

Sitting in the library next to my busy and beautiful wife, I overheard a discussion going between two young women. It's okay to hear other peoples' conversations- it's the no shhh zone. Carrie and I are not trying to eavesdrop. People just don't seem to care. Anyway, one of the things that was said caught my ear, and I had to put down some of my thoughts about it. One girl informed the other, I think about her fiance, "But he's not some Utah Mormon. He did drugs when he was in middle school."

PHEW. I was worried he was one of those mormon kids who didn't do drugs. I am glad he at least did drugs in middle school. WHAT A CATCH. Hold on to this one honey.

I feel bad for her husband. If this is one of her important criterion for marriage I feel she might not be ready for eternal covenants. However, I do not know her. I have only overheard the silliest conversation of my life, and I guess you can't get to know everything about a person from just hearing them talk to a friend. I am quick to judge which is bad.

rivalry week update

Well, the Red Sox got creamed last night, and there is no one I would rather lose to than the Royals, though if losing to a team meant that the Yankees didn't make the playoffs that loss would also be very sweet. Currently the Royals look poised to win the series and are winning 6-5 in the final inning, but I still hold out hope. The pesky Royals are not as bad as people think, and I am glad to be jumping on their bandwagon now.

We just got to the library after having a delicious dinner with Grandadio and Grandmamere. I apologize to those in the know from the Crane family, but I am not sure I know how to spell those, and Carrie stepped out for awhile. We went to the Golden Corral, and I am stuffed to the brim with food. For those of you that are wondering, in Finnish I would say that I am "tupaten taynna", which being interpreted literally means that I have jammed so much food in me that there is not a bit of air left in there. I think it is a good phrase. I remember a conversation of mine where sisters of mine claimed that Sizzler is better than Golden Corral, but I would have to give my endorsement to the GC. Dinner and discussion were tasty and fun. It is always fun to see family. Carrie and I hope to visit St. George before we go to Missouri if we can find the time.


We thought that we had found a place to live today in Springfield, but alas it may be too far away. It is four miles away from campus, and I fear that that may be a little far to bike. Carrie brought up a good point today: It's not the distance that is the problem. It is the distance plus the bad weather of torrential rain or winter cold that will be tough. I guess I agree. But we still may rent there because the price is right and we will have the A/C, pool, and internet that we need, which is rare in Springfield.

By the time I finished this entry I have found out that Octavio Dotel shut down the Red Sox so that the Royals won the series 2-1. I held out hope because just a few years ago Matthew and I went to a game where Kevin Millar hit a walk-off homerun off him, and that was before his career-altering shoulder surgery. sigh.

Anyone who has reactions to my comments about the Royals-Red Sox feud, Folden Corral, or biking distance- your feedback is welcome! Make comments and let your voice be heard.

RIVALRY WEEK!

Making weekday posts will not be a regular occurrance, but i could not help myself. Today is the first day of the Royals-Red Sox series in Boston. The Red Sox shut out the Royals, my second-favorite team by the way, 4-0. I am always in a better mood when the Red Sox win, and I look forward to tomorrow's win. And for those of you wondering, yes, this is meant as a taunt to get Carrie to write something on our blog.

no pics, no problem

We didn't take any pictures this week, so I will try and compensate with entertaining stories what you will suffer in visual boredom.

It is ridiculously hot, and it has been all week. We decided to get slurpies from 7-11 on 7/11, a tradition unlike any other. Much to our dismay we learned that the 7-11 on 5th north is under new management which means that all the slurpies now cost significantly more. This only matters because they ran out of the free celebratory cups that they were using earlier in the day.

Yesterday Carrie and I went to Seven Peaks for awhile in the afternoon and then we went to Carrabba's, an Italian restaurant where Carrie got a gift certificate from her employers. Since it was not our money we were high rollers for the night. We got cheese sticks. Matthew would have been proud. Also for Matt- Carrie got a question right watching VH1's World Series of Pop Culture because the answer was Weird Al's "White and Nerdy". We both ordered main dishes and finished off the night with dessert, "chocolate dream". Then we went to F.Y.E. because Carrie had another gift certificate there from her boss. We bought 13 going on 30 which we will watch together later on tonight, and we read the ultimate Harry Potter VII spoiler book, which in about 100 pages went over every possible plot twist and important event, and even made predictions for what would happen in the upcoming book.

At this point it is worth mentioning that I had never read Harry Potter until Carrie and I checked out a Potter #3 on tape for a drive to Kansas City last summer. As usual, Carrie influences my life for good.

I ended the night by working a night shift at my job. Again, I will take pictures some time of the guys that I work with and maybe even get some action shots. They are funny.

I was reminded today that the church has somehow lost record that I ever recieved the Melchizedek Priesthood. Do not be alarmed. i do have it. I got it my freshman year at BYU, but the stake clerk then clearly didn't process the needed paperwork, though I did go on a mission the next year. Somehow somewhere the information was lost, and I don't know all the pertinent information. It would be nice to get that all straightened out before we move to Missouri. I can't remember the name of my bishop or my stake or ward numbers from 99-00, but I guess that was a while ago.

Another Saturday, another blog entry while Carrie does her graduate school home work.

First things first- Regular readers may be interested to know that pictures have been added to the original blog and will hopefully be part of the weekly installments here on the blog. We bought a digital camera last week as a graduation present from the Cranes, and for the first time in awhile I didn't feel like I was being tricked into buying something there that I didn't need or want. However, we did figure out one money-saving trick. Do not buy your equipment accessories at Best Buy. The digital cameras cost the same as cameras at Wal-Mart. But Best Buy wants you to buy your memory card, carrying case, and batteries at their store as well. All of those items cost significantly more at Best Buy than at Wal-Mart. That's the John family hot tip o' the week.

The highlight of the week was the 4th of July holiday. We started off the day right with the traditional Provo parade, rumored to be the biggest in Utah and one of the biggest in the U.S. I love any parade that has both a giant inflatable Garfield and 150 LDS missionaries. I don't think there are too many places in the world where you walk down the street and a stranger offers you a delicious pancake breakfast, but such is life in Provo, Utah. While we are excited to be moving away from Utah in August, I am sure there will be some feelings similar to ones that rebellious teenage college students feel their first semester away from home...as the immortal Janet Jackson sang, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone." It is nice to live in a place on a student budget and not ever feel in danger on the street.

After the parade we spent the afternoon getting sun at Seven Peaks, another Provo perk. We have spent the last two summers going to the Peaks almost every Saturday. We are too impatient to wait for the rides, so we spend most of our time in the lazy river or the wave pool or laying out. In fact we have gone to Seven Peaks three times this week, which is probably a record. Having season passes makes it easier for us to justify going for only a few hours at a time. It has been so hot here the last few weeks that the water park has been great, though we burn our feet on the walkways every time.

We finished off the holiday with a fun BBQ with the rest of the John family and Anne. Daniel made delicious hamburgers. It was funny because after he was given genuine compliments on them he asked: "Did Carly make you say that?" After coming back inside from the grill, Carly unknowingly said,"Daniel loves it when you compliment his burgers," hinting at what we should do. After dinner we watched the Sandlot for the second 4th of July in a row. I guess it is a tradition now. After the movie we scampered off to campus to watch the firework show from the Stadium of Fire at the football stadium. We would have gotten closer but we were running late. After the show we lit some fireworks of our own in a nearby parking lot, though our fun was curbed by local restrictions due to recent dry weather and wildfires. The stupidest moment of the day had to be when I tried to throw a bumblebee firework and it hit an overhanging tree and landed in a bush. Luckily nothing caught. We all had a good time and in general made fools of ourselves, a fact that these pictures will support.

Last night we went on a date- a short visit to Seven Peaks and Oceans 13. During the week Carrie introduced me to the Scarlet Pimpernel which was great. Reading Les Miserables at the same time, I thought it was interesting to get another author's position on what the French Revolution was like. And that is right, I am reading Les Miserables. Inspired by Jill Crane, I started reading her copy of the book a couple weeks ago and I re-obtained the book a couple days ago by trading her Harry Potter V. We all want to read it before the movie comes out, which we plan on seeing.

Carrie has been very busy with work and graduate school, but she has promised to be a contributing author to this blog in the near future. There will also be another blog in the future about my job since there have been some requests. This week I will take some pictures and write to you about my work friends. If people have comments or requests for future blogs feel free to make comments. Personally, I thought Emily's response from last week was very funny, but mostly because it poked fun at Carrie.

Our First Entry

After just under a decade here in Provo I have finished classes at BYU. Now that I have more free time, Carrie and I decided that it would be fun to start a family blog so that we could inform the adoring public about the monumental and prosaic happenings of our lives. It should be an entertaining change of pace from the Paris news blitz you can follow on every news station. Some day soon pictures will be added to the blog thanks to my thoughtful mother-in-law. I would add them now, but I am not sure how much time we have left here at the Harold B. Lee Library in the NO SHHH! ZONE.

Last night we thought of both of our families as we had sandwiches and soup at Zupa's. We had to eat light in order to stay in peak physical condition for the night's athletic competition- miniature golf. After a little trash talking Carrie was soundly defeated. Humbled, she would not be denied the glory of multiple holes-in-one to finish off our round of 18. After such physical exertion we decided to have some "ice cream of the future"- Dip'n Dots, Cookies and Cream and Cookie Dough. To all those within reading distance of this blog: Dip'n Dots will not be the ice cream of our family's future.

The date had to end sooner than usual because I had to leave for my first graveyard shift at my summer job. For all those that I haven't talked to about it, I help take care of four handicapped men that have become my friends- Eleno, Danny, Zack, and Forrest. Last night was an adventure as I had to personally hold Zack's door shut for an hour from 11 to midnight so that he would not get out, go in everybody's rooms, scream, turn on their lights, and other things he loevs to do. I did not get much sleep. Anyways, I expect I will be sharing more stories and explanations from my job because there have already been some adventures. Carrie, too, will likely be sharing some uproariously funny stories from the world of asset protection law.

I came home and slept the morning away while Carrie did homework and went running. We spent the afternoon at Seven Peaks, getting in our quotas for carcinogenic sun rays for the week. I fear that I am more burned than I have been recently, but it is good to get sun burned every once in awhile. It means you are living your life.