Sunday, August 22, 2010

I'm seeing green.

Court and I decided this weekend that we would paint our apartment. It was too blah for us and we needed some color and excitement for a change.

Here is the before picture.



Here are some pictures during the painting process.









Here is the finished product.




The color is actually 'Grape Leaves'. It was either that or 'Asparagus'. Courtney picked it out and we both love it. It is almost like we have a new apartment. Sometimes we forget about it and when we walk in, it surprises us. That was part of our fun weekend. Hope you enjoy.

Monday, August 16, 2010

The gloves are off.

I've decided to stop apologizing for my constant posts. Sometimes I go weeks without writing. From now on I'll post when I feel I have something to post.

I recently shaved my head! Yes, I did it. I came to the conclusion that I could really care less about where or how I get haircuts. From now on Court will give me haircuts. For no reason other than to do something new and interesting, I asked her to shave it really short. Afterward, for a couple of days she would just laugh when she saw me. She would often forget it was cut short. Once in the store she came out of the restroom and busted out laughing. I asked why and she said it was because she didn't recognize me. Needless to say, it took some getting used to. Now I think we both actually like it.

Here is the before.

From Aug. 2010 Haircut

Here is a shot during.

From Aug. 2010 Haircut

And finally, the end results.

From Aug. 2010 Haircut

From Aug. 2010 Haircut

From Aug. 2010 Haircut

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Heartbroken

Sorry. When you are gone for a month you have a lot to catch up on. I prmise this is my last blog for about another week or so.

Recently, I received an email from a friend with a link to an article about the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints(Mormons). Below is the link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/in-new-tv-ad-campaign-mormons-pitch-message-to-middle-america

The article was pretty accurate. I had the feeling that the writer truly thinks the new advertising for the church was really only to prepare for Mitt Romney to run for President again. It is not true.

The thing that really bothered me were the comments afterward. I only made it through about 20 before I was literally sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe that people could be so crude and inappropriate. Some comments were not supported by truth. Some were sad truths. People make mistakes, nobody is perfect. I don't expect people to agree with our beliefs. I don't expect everyone to like us. However, I do expect that people treat us respectfully. I try to treat others with respect. I'm not perfect and if I have offended anyone I will personally apologize and try to make it right.

If you ever have questions about what we believe as members of this church, don't hesitate to ask me. I'd love to explain what we believe. If there ever comes a time when people are saying inappropriate things about yours or others beliefs, I hope that all of us will be able to stand up and demand that everyone is treated with the same respect we would expect for ourselves. I'm grateful for all my friends growing up who treated me respectfully. I hope that they felt that respect in return.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

A double shot of blog.

It's true. You are hearing from me again for a second time today. I apologize if the last one was enough for one day. If you want you can stop now and read this later.

Directly following the Court's family trip to Europe, Court and I went to spend a week with my family on the Oregon coast. What a difference between this week and the two previous weeks. We went from hot weather, a small family and lots to see to a week of no plans, cooler weather and a whole lot of family.

I have a six siblings, all of which and are married and having kids but one. all of us made it but two. We rented a huge house, that fit all of us, right on the Oregon coast. Although the weather was not the best it didn't stop us from relaxing and enjoying being with family.

We had a great time, each of the children took care of food for one day. This was fun because we got different kinds of food and no one was stuck cooking all week. Midweek we took family pictures on the beach. It was quite a task to get everyone looking and smiling at the same time.

I thought it was funny that I don't really read to many books during the year. However, after this three, almost four week vacation, I read almost five books, one of which was the seventh Harry Potter book. Interesting.

Anyway, here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Oregon Beach - 2010

A long time coming.

It has been a few weeks now since we have been back from our vacationing. Court is napping and I have nothing to do. This is probably a good time to blog.

Courtney and I were lucky to be invited to go along with her family on a cruise in the Mediterranean followed by a week in Italy! Awesome, I know! My extent traveling before this was the Northwest, the Northeast to visit Court and her family, Russia when I served there as a missionary, and our honeymoon to the Dominican Republic. Needless to say, I was excited.

We flew into Venice, Italy the day before our cruise. That night we took a gondola ride and ate at an Italian Restaurant. Dad, who speaks Italian, made friends quickly with the owner. That is one of his talents. He can make friends with anyone.

The next day we got on our cruise. We went to Dubrovnik, Croatia first. Then we went to Athens, Katakolon and Olympia in Greece. The food was great, it was relaxing and we had a great time. I ate escargot, duck and many more delicious things. I would recommend a cruise to anyone. They are so fun and relaxing.

After the cruise we ended up back in Italy. We did some site seeing and then traveled to Padua, Verona(home of Romeo and Juliet) and Milan. We did the site seeing thing and had a great time. I would say the only down side to this whole trip was the fact that they were having a major heat wave. It was in the high 90's the whole time with humidity of like 83%. It was killer, but overall well worth it.

While we did our site seeing thing in Italy we stayed in a hotel in the top of the mountains. The hotel was huge, and it used to be a old ski resort. Have you ever seen the shining? It was that creepy. There weren't tons of people there and it smelled funny, but the view was amazing. Did I mention I ate horse too!? Crazy huh!?

One of the highlights of Milan was that we actually, with our own eyes, had 15 minutes to see "The Last Supper". It was an amazing thing to witness. I never knew it was in a small church in Milan. Had we not been on a tour I never would have known. The church was in an obscure place, no big lines or fancy signs saying here is The Last Supper. It was a really neat experience .

Coming home we got stuck in Amsterdam and our luggage was lost too. It was a hard way to end such a wonderful trip. There was tons of things more to say but I figured it would bore everyone to read it all. I took almost 500 pictures too. I'll add a link to some of them. If you want to hear more about the trip just let me know.

Cruise - Italy Trip