Today in Relief Society we talked about family history. Its sneaky presentation distracted me from zoning out and when my teacher explained that blogging is part of "what we can do now with family history" I was engaged and committed to blog a bit today eventhough the ups and downs of my week seem rather ordinary. But I have to remember that you are not living everyday of my life and it was actually a wonderful eventful week.
Monday I sacrificed my tredmill date to meet with Drew Williams, a supervisor over my new grant proposal internship I am starting. His office is in the advancement bldg at the top of campus, so while I was in the neighborhood I stopped to see Bill Bridges since his office is now up there too. He reminded me how much he loves and adores me and my family and as usual I left feeling warm and fuzzy from the shower of compliments that usually accompanies visits with him. I hurried down to class because we had a guest teacher, Tito who is here setting Alwin Nikolais' "Crystal and the Sphere" on the Ririe Woodbury company in SLC. His class spent 45 minutes on the floor doing Nikolais based technique which was a combination of coordination, strength and flexibility building. Tito demonstrated with my friend Shauni how to grab the foot with the opposite hand stretching the leg behind the head and pulling the shoulder and chest through the window between leg and arm. Needless to say I felt strange sensations in odd places throughout my body for the remainder of the day, but unlike any of my friends woke up feeling light in my joints and relatively ironed out in my body.
Tuesday my afternoon rehearsal was cancelled so I called up my friend Kendra and went in for a happy haircut and new do. I tossed my cares and curls away and the vivacious emerged. I left prepared to take on my life in a much more styish way.
Thursday I ran into my old institute teacher Brother Bartholomew who I haven't seen for over a year since he took a full-time position at BYU and left UVU. I was in his class for most of my college experience and consequently feel very grateful and connected to him for what I learned from him. We chatted about what's going on in my life including the current dating scene. He paused and asked me more about that. I made the comment that I am looking for someone who can run along side me through my life because if he can't keep up then it won't work. Brother B looked at me and stated "you don't get it." In my mind (of course I don't get it, if I did I would have it figured out by now) After he shook his head, he kindly painted an image for me that changed my perspective on what the marriage relationship is all about. He held up his hands and measured about 12 inches in the air before he said "this is how much you can do, you and God together" then he widened his hands quite a bit and stated "this is how much you can do with a husband and God". He continued "I could not have done half of the things I did without my wife, marriage is not inhibiting, it's empowering." I had never thought about marriage like that. I was under the impression that if a low maintenance male someone wants to hop on board with me and go where I want to go and put up with my family, then it could work, but I am not dragging anyone through life and certainly not waiting for anyone to figure it out and sweep me off my feet. However what I figured out about marriage that day was so different. I finally caught a glimpse of the truth of this teacher's statement and the magnitude of the plan Heavenly Father has laid out for us. I imagined my future marriage as a fluid give and take relationship with someone just as excited about my life goals as I am about his and I was overwhelmed that anything could be that sweet. I guess I never thought it possible to find someone that I could share all my deep desires and life goals with and have him absolutely love me for it and be my number one cheerleader. What I learned that day is that it is possible and I will have it at the perfect time. I felt a huge wall around my heart had just melted away.
Thursday night I hing out with my cousin Beth Ann Wells. She treated me to Cafe Rio and the movie of "Le Corsaire" (a pirate flavored ballet)afterwhich we went to BYU to see BYU's Theatre Ballet perform with the Royal Ballet School of London, which was fabulous! I bumped in Dave and Natalie Fullmer at intermission and I was able to tell them that Hilary was bautiful in the opening number of the "Sleeping Beauty" variations. And the Royal Ballet School was of course fabulous! Their performance of the Don Quixote pas de deux was exhilarating, the most exciting I have seen yet!
Friday I went to my friend Anita's reception and realized an urgency to do something about my awkwardness on the social dance floor. I can pirouette and split my legs, but when it comes to schmoosing on the dance floor with a guy, I could not be more stiff,uncoordinated, and ungamely. Sheesh! I came home and watched "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days" and wished my sisters were there to laugh with me.
Saturday I went to my friend Jessy's shower and chatted with my dear friend Amber. When I got home Biddy Thomas came over to visit and it was so good to see her. We chatted about the reality of "what to do after graduation" and some of the wonderful implications that come with that upcoming phase for me. It was great to get her thoughts about finances vs. experience. I hurried to rehearsal with Maeva and then on to work at Halls before I picked up my friend's mac hard drive to transfer my China footage from the Halls to school. I am finally getting a move on this project, hooray!
Work was great, I love my job! I can't believe I get paid for playing mom. When I came home I watched "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" with Spencer Tracy, the old black and white film... super good acting and super creepy. But still applicable to today.
Today was a fun day at church with all my favorite people oohing and awing over my hair. One boy in my ward that hasn't really spoken to me in a while came up to me after sacrament mtg and harrassed me for chatting with my friend and not already being at Sunday school then proceded to come with me to sunday school which breaks his record of about a year of absent attendance at sunday school. Hmm,saving souls one haircut at a time. :)

I love being a dancer!

I fell in love with dancing again on Monday.

Swimming with two Downs

I got to tell you about my swimming trip with Bob and Mei. We went to the Provo Rec Center on Saturday for an outing while the parents were away. (Didn't even think of using this time to do homework) So off we go.
We get in the water and I find that Mei is too small for the deep and Bob is too big for the shallow and there is only one of me. Se we entertained Mei in the shallow part for a while and I went into the barely safe enough to jump and let Bob jump in a couple of times, giving Mei the thumbs up with eye contact in between each jump. Then Mei came on my back and we went to the deep part and let Bob swim around. He swam almost the whole length of the pool dogpaddling just out of reach of my hands for support. When he finally coughed on some water signaling that he was done I lifted him up and held him the rest of the way. I could feel the burning eyes of the life guard wondering what I was trying to do with this kid. So we ventured back to the shallow end and sat down in a circle. Bob immediately stood up with crossed legs and pointed directly at his groin. Well, Thank you for the signal!! So we hopped out and Mei kept playing in an 'i'm not listening' manner before I chased her down and pulled her out of the pool all the while praying that Bob can hold it til we make it to the toilet.
Bob and I rush in and find a stall where I wait for a little bit and anxiously tell him to hurry up! I go quickly to look for Mei and she is standing close to the door, FREEZING, but waiting so patiently. Oh thank you. So I go back and encourage Bob and carefully handling his swimsuit so it doesn't lose the string that I cut short the last time we went swimming.
I run back to thank Mei for waiting so patiently and she is gone! I go around the corner to peep into the pool and see her eye me directly and give me a thumbs up. Okay, she is safe for a moment. (Heavenly Father please keep her safe). Back to Bob. I finally decide that it is too cold to wait any longer and encourage him to put his suit back on. As I go to tie it, the strings are both gone! Well, that is probably the end of our trip... lets go get Mei. I scanned the shallow end and panicked when I didn't see her. She was inching her way along the side of the deep deep end, the end where the diving board is. Yeah, Thank You Heavenly Father for keeping her safe!
He is so good to us!

Holding down the Homefront

Last weekend my Mom and Dad went to Washington for my nephew James' baptism and birthday, so I held down the homefront while they were gone for 4 days. As they suggested the idea my response was "no problem, sure thing...only 4 days?" My feelings were slightly different on Sunday night waiting for their return. Wow, my stamina isn't what it used to be.
A few highlights from the weekend. I want to record the first one for my own journaling purposes because we left this part out of the report, and I think I am safe because Mom and Dad rarely read my blog.
So Thursday night, first night without the parents, I am fixing chicken broccoli casserole (mega sized) and doing my best to handle all the nerve firings in my brain about each person, thing, time, medication, that needs to happen that evening, and picking up the phone to hear about Rosey's date last night, when Doug is coming to cover, what is the recipe from Jules, and my friend Beth borrowing my Kinesiology book. All the while baking cookies with Mei. We finish the cookies and Mei and Bob follow me downstairs to stick them in the oven. I look at the clock on my phone and decide that I will remember to come down in 5 minutes to pull out the cookies from the ambiguous oven. So I race upstairs to finish the casserole. A couple of minutes later I go downstairs and Mei informs me "Bobby gone". What!!!! Where did he go? "Idn know" as she shrugs her shoulders. I frantically look in every room downstairs calling his name. The only trace I have of him is Peter's curtain that is moved 6 inches to the right uncovering a bit of the window. I recruited Peter to go out and look while I finish the casserole. I begin working on the casserole again and went downstairs for something. AH! The Cookies?? I rush to oven to pull out probably the best cookies I have ever made... don't ak me how it all worked out, thank you Heavenly Father.
So Pete comes back in unsuccessful. In his teenage tone "somebody will call and let us know where he is"
"Pete!! We can't just wait for that?"
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
In my mind I know that Pete is right from his vast experience of this same predicament, but I can't just give up. Somehow my neurotic reaction makes me feel that we are getting somewhere.
So I finish the casserole and stick it in the oven and head out to walk around the block. Pete calls to give me the address of where Bob is. I hop in my car and head out to the next block and halfway down the street. I pass a cop car on the way and knock on the door of the house.
The friendly older gentleman who almost died of a heart attack from Bob's intrusion was really sweet about letting Bob explore his house and handing him over to the police when they came. His granddaughter recognized him and called him "Bobby". The gentleman took Bobby to his daughters house up the driveway from him and his daughter Brenda recognized him from church. She supposed that he was in the 6th ward and called the Jensen's in our ward who confirmed that Bobby belonged to us. So they told the policeman and he responded "yep, we've identified him" (yeah, sure you have) and Bobby was excorted home. I arrived home and asked Pete what the guy said when he dropped Bob off.
"Nothin'"
"What? No, what did he say?"
"Nothing"
"Pete, what words did he speak when he came to the door?"
"He just asked if this was his house and dropped him off"
Oh Gosh!
Everyone home safe and sound!
We just like to keep our guardian angels busy around here!

Happy New Year!! Welcome 2009!!

Happy New Year!! And it was the happiest New Years Eve I can remember. Well, at least the most dazzlingly celebrated. I spent New Years Eve with Rose. We began our night dining on pork salads from Cafe Rio and engaging in fantastic conversation about the men in our lives and how grateful we are to be together this night without them! 

We went downtown to First Night at the Gallivan Center and flitted from stage to stage and tent to tent tasting each event sufficiently for exciting fun. We made bee pencils and wrote our New Years Resolutions on honeycombs to be hung in a giant beehive (for the beehive state). It is a TH year for us, Rosey is creating Trust, Healing, and Travel while I am creating THanksgiving and Healing. We also partook of the breakdancing, Latino band, sensual circus fire dancers, local music artists, and party vendors where we found our fabulous "Happy New Year" tiaras that you see modeled in almost every picture of us in the same pose with a different background. :)

After seeing all there was to see, we hopped on trax and headed to Temple Square. On the way we found two young girls out with their grandfather waiting to cross the road. They admired our "princess hats", we enthusiastically thanked them and offered them our green light sticks wrapped around our necks. They joyfully accepted and smiled as we connected them around their necks before dashing down South Temple to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg where inside we would find one of the most sparkling highlights of the night. We stopped first in the Empire Room where they had 12 singers performing popular memories and music from the 1940s. We sang along until we were gently shushed by a cute asian woman beside us... then we just lip synched through the rest of the songs as mutely as we could. They sang songs like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", the Coca Cola theme, Moonlight Serenade, and that one song that  Michael Buble sings... "It's You". We sang along with the darling old folks nodding in their chairs with huge grins on their faces as these memories are dusted off and dancing through their minds. 

When the 40s show was over we looked at the schedule of events and raced to the foyer to find a Big Band set playing all the old favorites in our repertoire. We found a cozy spot by one of the pillars and enjoyed almost a whole hour of rich Big Band and muffled dancing. This is where we would have waved our magic wands to have our dad and brothers there to dance with us. And it was confirmed that since we are on the planning committee for the Ruby Reunion, a dance party is definitely on the schedule. While we jived in the corner I noticed many heads turned our way vicariously enjoying the life of our bodies moving and enjoyed many sparkling moments when our eyes met. 

Rose and I got a kick out of the darling gentleman guarding the alternate exit from the building wearing a "Happy New Year" hat. He suavely pointed and winked at everyone passing by while wishing them a "Happy New Year". We eagerly asked to take a picture with him. "Sure!" he said excitedly as he manually placed his arm around Rosey on one side before taking my hand in his on the other. 

About 11:40 we finally connected with Rosey's friend Ryan and decided to meet his party at the U of U Institute for the count down. Yikes! We had a small window of time to meet up with them before 2009. So we hopped on and off Trax, ran 4 blocks to the car (Passing a hobo bumming off some bucks from passersby...eek, keep running) and raced... drove safely across town to the Institute where we met our party at 11:57 pm. They had a ball to drop with a pen of balloons to let go at 12:00. We screamed and cheered the new year in with a shower of streamers and confetti, pictures of 2009 with our hands and eyes, and new year kisses. After Rose got hers, we brainstormed some approaches I could use to eenie minie mo a chosen candidate for the job. We laughed it off and that was the end of that, maybe next year. :)

After the hulabaloo dwindled and the mini Martinelli's was gone, we monkey walked in a line to our cars and headed to Ryan Beck's house for a dance party, sparklers, and good clean chillin' out. The dance party was the most refreshing grooving I have done in a long time--less stress I guess, and jivin' with Rose. I won the name writing with sparklers this year and got to massage Rosey's "dead" feet while we cooled down on the couch. Best New Year's Ever!

New Year's day Rose and I got off early at 10:15 to make her hair appointment in Ogden. We enjoyed Souper Salad for lunch and headed home to make dinner for Grandpa. A whole 24 hours with Rose filled with laughs, memories, moments of truth, raucous singing, dancing, and questions I have always wondered but never dared ask anyone else... What a treat, I love you Rose!

The Chocolate Angel

August 18, 2008

Today I flew home to America. I cried when I stepped off the plane in San Francisco. I had an 8 hour layover here, so I decided to go see the Golden Gate Bridge. I was confident I could negotiate my way there and back in time to catch my flight. Had I known what I was getting myself into, I don't think I would have felt as sure of my navigating foreign territory skills.

I got a map, hopped on a shuttle and made it to the bridge without any hiccups. The bridge was cool, but the weather was absolutely beautiful: cool wind permeated with ocean flavor, my favorite forecast.

While walking on the bridge, my phone rang. I answered in enthusiasm, knowing that I would hear a familiar American voice on the other end. I felt I had just returned from Mars, still simulating my experience. I was still on the phone with Margaret when I unconsciously hopped on my bus back to the airport. I saw one of the identification numbers and anxiously thought "this is it". As our conversation continued, my bus turned right instead of left at a crucial looking intersection and I didn't recognize anything beyond. "I better go Mags, somehow I think I am on the wrong bus and I have to catch my flight to Utah tonight". I cautiously approached my chocolate colored bus driver and explained where I needed to go by when. He just laughed and said "girl, looks like you are comin' with me for the long haul" EEK! Sheer Panic filled every cell! My driver Sonny saw the anxiety and reassured me that he would take good care of me and let me know when to get off to make the shuttle connection back to the airport to catch my flight. I calmed down 40% and continued to make conversation with Sonny. We chatted about everything from the housing market to the gorgeous weather to the Zoo. It was a great connection. "Next time you're in San Fran, just give me a call and I will show you around" were his final cheerful words.

Sure enough I made the rest of my connections and walked on the airplane for Salt Lake City with time to spare. I was again impressed with the detours that become the miracles of my life and the angels that show up at the perfect time. This connection was the reason I stepped on the wrong bus and I did my best to enjoy the moment inbetween the neurotic anxiety of not being able to go home that night. My conversation with Sonny was the tender mercy in that moment reminding me that everything is okay.

The 1 1/2 hour flight home was the longest flight of my life, longer than 11 hrs to Beijing. I was anxious to get home, a 5 yr old was screaming behind me, some obnoxious boys were talkin' "dude" in front of me, and I was responsible for evacuating the whole plane in an emergency. It was a lot to handle in that moment, but of course time comes and goes with all uncomfortable experiences.

Rose picked me up and I got home to Provo just in time to hug Joe, Rach, and the kids before they returned home to Washington.

Mom breathed me into her arms and exclaimed "You smell like China!" and Joe and Stu so lovingly welcomed me with "the special greeting customary in Asian countries" I was a hard core pancake and gullible was written in the stars that night:) Joe can make anything sound for real until it's too late!

Final Day

August 17, 2008
My last full day in Beijing and I am grateful it was Sunday. This morning I woke up to the uncomfotableness of my sticky sweat. The kind that is just past breaking before fully dripping, the yucky kind. So after I cooked eggs for breakfast I refreshed in a cool bath.
I checked my email right before church and read an email my sister Margaret sent me. It wasn't anything in particular or any new news, just reading her words unleashed the emotions and tears flooded my eyes. I felt a combination of excitement, relief, exhaustion, and gratitude.
After church I took my time getting home, soaking in the final details of this moment. I watched the kids playing outside the apartment complex and just said thank you.Tonight Curt, Mand and I played Guillotine and snacked on homemade trailmix -(Mand's specialty).