Camping Tales of Woe - and other stuff

Hello everyone! It is Sunday and we are back on weekly posts. :D

On Monday, Mary and Derek came to visit us for about a week. They were awesome. They slept on the floor in our spare room (we had made plans to pick up a spare futon from a friend, but that ended up not working out in time for us to use it) and did fun things with us all week. They also bought us a bookshelf! I don't know if you noticed in the video from the last post, but we had all our books in boxes turned on their sides. Mary and Derek noticed that, and went out and bought us a bookcase!!! It looks lovely and fits all our books! We thank them profusely for that!

We also went camping - well, kind of. We prepared tin foil dinners, collected items for S'mores, and drove up to Utah Lake State Park. At the entrance you were supposed to put your money in an envelope and write your campsite number on it, and put it in the drop box. However, since we hadn't reserved a campsite yet (they say you can come and camp there if no one has reserved it) we decided to go look for a good one and then come back and put our money and campsite number in the drop box.

We found a good empty campsite. The guys went and collected dry firewood (somewhat scarce as it had rained that morning). Mary and I collected dry grass, smaller sticks, and other firestarters. We all came back, and with some trouble because it was quite windy, we were able to start a good fire. We were just getting out the tent and the tin foil dinners when... the SPRINKLERS came on, dousing us, our fire, and our leftover dry firewood. We hurried to salvage the dry firewood that was left, collected our gear and moved to the next closest empty campsite. We had to collect some more wood and firestarters, and after a bit of trouble again, we managed to start another fire. We began to get out the tent and the dinners, then... the sprinklers on THAT campsite came on, putting out our fire again, and drenching most of the rest of our firewood.

So this time we got smart and moved to an empty campsite that we had SEEN get watered already, so we knew it wouldn't get watered again. This time we decided to make our fire in the little grill box, but since most of our firewood was soaked and we couldn't find any more, we had a lot of trouble making it and it took us quite a while. By this time it was about 8:30 and we were starving. Eventually a guy who had seen our unfortunate series of events donated us some of his firewood, and we were able to start a weak fire. A few minutes later, guess what? Yep. The sprinklers. They came on AGAIN, even though we had SEEN them already come on just 20 minutes before.

At this point we figured the park managers probably had security cameras and a button that turned on the sprinklers, had seen our plight, and were having a good laugh at our expense. So we packed up our things, got in the car and drove off. We never put our money in the drop box - we didn't think they deserved it, and we'd only stayed a few miserable hours anyway. We called up my aunt Nicole and asked to cook our tin foil dinners in her oven and roast S'mores in her fireplace (as we didn't have a fireplace at our house). She agreed, and that's how we spent the rest of our night. We didn't end up eating until about 10:00, by which time Christian had already fallen asleep. We did roast some s'mores that night, but the next morning Derek also discovered that you can roast marshmallows quite nicely over the electric stove burner, so we had s'mores for breakfast as well.

The next day was much more fun. We "hiked the Y" - for those of you who don't know what that means, there is a big Y painted on the mountain near BYU, and there is a popular hiking trail that leads up to the Y. So me, Christian, Derek, Mary, and Sarah went along on the hike. It wasn't a very long hike, but it was pretty steep at some points, and we stopped a lot on the way so that people could rest. It took us about an hour to get to the top, but it was fun. Once we got to the top it was beautiful looking out at the night lights (we hiked in the evening) and the stars. We took pictures, but unfortunately can't find the camera we took them on, so we will post those when we find it. The hike back down was interestingly harder than you'd think, because it still takes muscles to keep you from tumbling down the mountain at horrific speeds. (Random side note: isn't it weird that "horrible" and "terrible" mean the same thing, but "horrific" and "terrific" are complete opposites?) Our quads started aching after a while, and we invented fun ways to walk to avoid the burn - doing the "grapevine" walk sideways, walking backwards, etc.

Mary and Derek went home Friday morning. It was very fun to have them around! They got back to Idaho safely and we hope they come again soon!

Saturday Christian and I decided we'd go on a date. We packed up a picnic and took it to the BYU duck pond (http://www.flickr.com/photos/35069521@N08/3644271744/), a popular date spot (and spot to take your kids to feed the ducks). We spread out blankets and ate our picnic in the shade under some trees, while watching several cute little kids trying to throw bread to the ducks (usually missing and landing the bread on the sidewalk right in front of them). It was quite relaxing and fun.

After that, we went to a French horn party that Christian had put together as section leader. We ate pizza, drank soda, played a bunch of games like Pit, Cranium, and Catch Phrase, and got to know everyone (most of the people who came were new freshmen). It was very fun.

I apologize, we have no recipe this week. We were concentrating more on cheap than new food this week, so we didn't actually make anything new. We love you all! Keep us posted on how you're doing!

Love,

Brittany and Christian

Back to Provo

Hey everybody! Long time, no see. Sorry about that. We've been recently spending Sundays on ourselves and haven't been doing blogs. It's just been really busy with school and with our move back to Provo.

Anyway, yes, we've moved back to Provo! We successfully got all of our stuff out, just as the new people were moving in to our old place :p. There was a little mix up on timing, and I thought we had more days to move than we did. But that's okay - it all worked out. As soon as we clean up our place today, we will post a video tour of our apartment. Unfortunately, we don't have a camera that will record sound, but you will at least be able to see the tour, and we will provide commentary underneath. We really enjoy our new place. It's much bigger than our first apartment, although smaller than the townhouse (especially in the kitchen), I think that's what I will miss most. Brittany says she will miss the dishwasher most of all.

First you walk in and there's the kitchen (obviously). The first bedroom you enter is where we just keep most of our stuff. walk in past the kitchen area and you see our dining table. Turn right and there's our bedroom with a large-ish closet. Walk back out, another look at the dining table, and the living area. Walked into the bathroom with our own washer and dryer! It has been awesome living here and we're gonna love it.

Brittany's cousin Brooke was baptized on Aug 1. She is autistic and ADHD, and so they had let her decide when she was ready to be baptized, and they worried a little if she would be willing to let herself be put under the water. They practiced a lot in the swimming pool, and a couple months after she turned 8 she was ready. Her uncle Shane, who had just returned from a mission, was who she trusted most to baptize her. It all was very, as they called it, "Brooke style." Basically, there were no talks, and it was a pray-dunk-pray event. In a way, though, it was good because it was tailored to the receiver of the ordinance. If it was as formal as a typical baptism, it would have been like Brittany and I having a cotillion-style event for our reception. It just wouldn't have fit. Afterwards, the family went and had cake at Nicole's. It was a really awesome evening.

Brittany has been volunteering at Utah State Hospital, the local mental hospital, here in Provo during this term.  She was assigned to help out in the patient library. It was an assignment for her abnormal psychology class. She enjoyed it, mostly, except for a few...let's say "interesting" events that occurred while she was there. I'll let her write about them:
The best one I think is when a little boy that looked about 11 or 12 came in.  He seemed completely normal, he was talking to his supervisor and I checked him out an Eminem CD that he wanted.  He took it into the kid room and started listening to it on his headphones.  A few minutes later, though, I suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream from the kid room: "SLAUGHTERRRRRR!!!!!!" The little boy's supervisor shushed him, and the kid started laughing maniacally: "I'm sooooo happy!!!! Hahahahahaha!"  The supervisor shushed him again, and a few seconds later the kid comes calmly back into the CD renting room and asks politely if he can check out another Eminem CD.  I hesitate, and his supervisor says, "Ummmm, no.  How about you pick something with a little less violent lyrics?"  I thought it was kinda funny.  It's interesting, though, because a lot of the people there you'd never guess at first glance that there's something "up" until something like that happens.

Finals were this last week, and it was an extremely stressful few days for the both of us (since we're both horrible procrastinators). I had to hurriedly get a few java projects done for my computer science class, and then, for finals, they gave me two days to get another pretty extensive project done. On top of that, I had to memorize about 30 painters/sculptors/architects, and 5-10 composers, and 5-10 writers from the 20th century for my music civilization final. On my final CS project I got a 95! (Surprising, because on my self evaluation I had given myself an 83.) I think I have found a way to export my projects, so I will try and do that and post them for download. CLICK HERE for a download of my final project. Not sure how I ended up in music civ, but I feel really good about it.

Then Brittany had to write a 4-5 page paper on a celebrity (real or fiction) that had a mental illness. She wrote about the Joker from the Dark Knight having antisocial personality disorder. CLICK HERE for a link to see what it is. She gave very good arguments, and was a pro at the diagnosis. And she got a 100 on it! I'm so proud of her. She has learned a lot in the class, but would still rather work with autistic children than become a psychiatrist/psychologist. For her public speaking class, she gave a speech on why it is NOT sexist to hold open doors for girls. She has been very frustrated at super-feminists since she took her psychology of gender class. She did very well on it, and got a 91 on it. She doesn't feel like she's increased much in public speaking, but I know she has at least learned to prepare a good speech, which is a great portion of it.

Yesterday, Brittany, Chris Williams, and I went to a barbecue thrown by a guy that used to be in my parent's ward back home, Brother Lopez. It was lots of fun to see him and his family again. They were traveling through on vacation and decided to throw a party for people they know living in Provo area. It was lots of fun getting to see them again.

After the barbecue, we went back to Chris's house to have a going away party for a guy in Chris's ward that Brittany and I have gotten to know named Chase. He's heading up to USU for school. We had some dinner and brownies for him and we all played a new game of Chris's called "Tales of the Arabian Nights." It is a very fun game, similar to the choose-your-own-adventure books, where you have a character and try to gain points through quests and encounters. The way you react to different encounters, and different skills you have, will change your story, and what ends up happening to you. Chris was very proud that he picked a game that Brittany really liked, because those two almost never agree on anything. 

Anyway, we have to go now. We have a recipe this week from Chris Williams childhood. It's simply called "Stew beef, rice, and gravy." Can you guess the main ingredients???? There really aren't any measurements, so if you don't like those kind of recipes, it's not for you.

You will need:

package of stew meat
white rice
water
flour
cooking oil
large pot
salt and pepper

1) Cover the stew meat in flour and fry it in oil until the outside is brown - don't cook it all the way through.

2) Put the meat on a paper towel to drain off the excess oil, and take the crusty drippings from the oil pan and put them in a large pot along with the meat. Add enough water to cover the meat.

3) Boil the meat on med-high until it's tender. Do not discard the water.

4) Start cooking the rice as normal.

5) Add flour to the pot until it thickens it to a gravy-ish consistency and season to taste (we only used salt, and seasoned pepper

6) Serve the gravy/meat stuff over the rice and enjoy.

Brittany was particular towards it, but I thought it was awesome.