The Big Easy

There was a day in July when I mourned the end of field trips.

...but that was before I had ever experienced a business trip.

A little more work, a little less bus -- but still, good deal.

Enter New Orleans.

Last week I headed down to the Big Easy for an education conference.

Dirty city, good food.

Here's the famous Bourbon street, with golden boy dancing for all the drunk people.

I think he made more money than I did that day? But it's cool, I can't dance like he can.

He does have the benefit of being black, though.

We watched another group of street performers in front of this cathedral.

They were hilarious and filled with racial comments that white people could never get away with.

That night we headed to Mulate's for some southern Louisiana cooking.

There was a sweet old man almost half my height that danced every dance that night.

He asked me to do a little country swing number. I was honored.

I found out his name is Bill, he travels around with the band and dances every song,

and after our duet he gave me a little certificate that said I was an "official Cajun dancer."

Even dirty, smokey cities have cute, old Bills.

Over the week I ate (or was talked into eating):

Alligator gumbo, barbecued oysters, fried calamari, Louisiana redfish,

crawfish stew, jambalaya, red beans and rice, bread pudding, dirty rice...

...and beignets from the famous Cafe' Du Monde!

I've been craving one of these since I saw the Princess and the Frog,

and I didn't even know what they really were until I ordered one.

Deep fried dough loaded with powdered sugar.

Yum.

Deep fried (almost anything) loaded with powdered sugar.

Yum.

We ate that healthy (right?) snack while walking along the Mississippi River,

and listening to steamboats play music.

I wanted to be Tom Sawyer.

Ok, maybe Becky Thatcher.

And that was my week of southern hospitality.

Plus, #38. And counting.

The Sunny State and Hoosiers

Look at this beautiful sunset! 

And then look at these beautiful people.

After Boston I met up with the Daetwylers in Florida for some beach time! It was the perfect setting to catch up on all the country music I missed out on this summer -- definite beach theme going on there.

Good people, good food, good beaches ... bad sunburn.

Just add aloe into the equation and life is great!

 Michael's dad is the captain of this sweet boat, but the wind didn't cooperate too much.

All the grandkids didn't mind though, it still made a great stationary pirate ship for them.

And look! Wild dolphins! I've only seen the SeaWorld kind.

These were way better.

They didn't want to have much to do with us when we got in the water, 

but it was so fun to watch them swim and play.

We also saw a (small) shark, an alligator, and plenty of jellyfish.

We didn't try to play with those.

But in Nashville we ate some fried alligator tail. That's even cooler than seeing one, right?

(I'm not going to tell you what it tasted like because you have to try it,

but if you're guessing it's like chicken you may very possibly be right.)

We stopped to walk around the Opryland Hotel, it was incredible.

I've never seen so many beautiful plants in one place!

From there we drove the rest of the way to the famous Evansville, Indiana.

It's famous to me just because Michael has been defending it to me for the past year -- 

I had no mental picture of Indiana before I met him. Then when I finally decided on prairies

fields and fields and fields, he got pretty defensive. 

Now I have to admit I was wrong. 

It's green and beautiful and full of fireflies, but it could use some mountains.

(I can't admit total defeat or Michael will just run with that.)

We visited a neighbor's farm to get the whole Indiana experience -- 

or maybe just to see lots of fun animals.

Miss Ella found a pony just her size! 

I'm sure she wanted to take that home to Japan with her.

Cows are my favorite. 

You just look into their eyes and they're nothing but pure.

Not stupid, just pure. Don't confuse the two.

Maybe milking goats isn't actually a typical Hoosier thing,

but it was definitely fun.

And so was this. 

That little white stream is exactly what you think it is.

Florida and Indiana and the road trip between was such a great time.

The Daetwylers were so nice to let me join them!

And I can't think of a better way to put off the dreaded job search.

But now I'm home, and I'll grow up ... kind of.

Seattle | Long Post, Long Time Coming

I think Michael and I possibly drove farther than any other BYU students over Presidents' Day weekend. Maybe that's why I'm not blogging about it until now? A lot of homework time was sacrificed in the making of this trip.

Look, Idaho! And that, my friends, is the only picture of a "Welcome to (insert new, exciting state here)" sign that we got. BUT I added two to my list; this was my first time to Oregon and Washington. Northwest corner, check.

We drove up to visit Allison and her fiance, Adam. Even though we heard a lot about Adam last summer, we still wanted to check him out before she marries him in June.

We approve.

Adam is going to medical school in Seattle, and Allison moved there after Jerusalem. They were so nice to give us the grand tour of their city! We loved visiting them.

Seattle in one word: colorful. Interpret that as you will. Look, the city has trolls under bridges. Three Billy Goats Gruff style. We climbed it.

And picked its nose.

The market! Saturdays and markets are just meant to go together. 

London taught me that. 

Sometimes that lesson causes some sentimental Saturdays when I have no market access. 

Pike Place Market. It's famous. 

We watched a movie in 8th grade once to learn about being positive employees no matter where we worked. 

The whole movie focused on Pike Place Market. 

Must have been memorable because I don't know why I'm bringing that up.

They really do throw fish a lot.

This...is the gum wall. 

I just really like it because every piece on that wall is not on the ground, and not on my shoe. They're also not under a desk in the library. I am very grateful for this wall.

Mmm, more markets. I wish I did my shopping here every week.

And I wish someone brought me these every week. 

Flowers from a market, what's better than that?

Don't worry, that was hypothetical -- I know you won't be able to come up with anything.

They're getting married in DC on June 18th, people. 

And I will be there! That's where I'm doing my internship to finish up school. Then after that I will ... oh wait. I have absolutely no plans after.

Let's not dwell on that.

I just liked this.

Don't tell Allison, but the REAL reason we went up to Seattle that weekend was for the Pacific Northwest Yo-Yo championship. Michael is obsessed.

Ok, that's not true. But we did spend two hours a few minutes being jealous of a lot of insanely talented yo-yoers. I felt like we discovered an entire hidden community. But then we saw other BYU sweatshirts and I realized that we didn't really discover anything - Mormons are all over free entertainment.

We rode a ferry out to Bainbridge Island one night. People can bring cars onto ferries. I tried not to think about that too much... but I feel like any boat with cars on it has a good chance of sinking. 

Water robs me of my faith.

It was incredibly windy and enjoyable. The front of the ferry was almost too windy to handle. There were some small children that couldn't get enough of it, actually. I was convinced they were going to be blown off the boat.

Water, no faith, remember?

Michael has a rough past with the Puget Sound. I shouldn't tell you this because Allison has the copyright to the story, but he once faced a vicious harbor seal in those waters. He was just paddling along, then suddenly a growling seal emerged from the water and tried to climb onto his kayak. Somehow he managed to fight it off with his paddle, but once he pushed it back, his kayak flipped over.

I think he was a little nervous during the ferry ride, but it was good for him to get back to the scene of the incident. Closure.

See? Vicious.

We accomplished a lot over the weekend, including this ridiculously hard puzzle. Don't be fooled by the picture, in real life all of the pieces look pretty much identical. 

Really, though.

See? It was hard. But we did it. For some reason we just couldn't leave Seattle without seeing the finished product.

And then ... we had to get in Saturn Saturn and drive home. Fourteen hours, again. 

I thought I would finally experience the feeling of wanting a road trip to be over and actually get sick of driving.

Didn't happen.

If fourteen hours isn't my limit, I wonder what is? I need to find out...

Look, Washington is beautiful.

The entire weekend was sunny, the whole rain reputation must be a myth.

We spent all of Thursday in the car, played Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then drove...

and drove...

and drove...

...home on Monday. 

I. Love. Road Trips.

p.s. This is Oregon. We stopped at a lookout point because I had to touch it. Now it is officially counted on my list :)

Next weekend: Road trip to Moab! It's race time, people.

#24 and counting...

Summer is winding down! So I'm finishing off the checklist. Maine was the last state I needed to go to in this corner of the country, so Ali and I took a little road trip on Saturday.

"Maine: The Way Life Should Be"
Cute little slogan.

We saw boats! But no lighthouses. We saw lots of fresh lobster places! But didn't eat any. (It's gross, don't judge me.) And Alison thought a dog was cute for the first time in her life, that was a lot more exciting to me than it probably is for you. So that's that!
I'm open to suggestions about where to go next :)

This is my last week of doing Recreation Therapy at Hebrew Rehab with Ali, I'm so sad! The residents are my favorite people ever. I'll post about them soon, they always keep me laughing.

Road Trip

Church history weekend! Loved it. We took off for Palmyra last Friday afternoon to make it right in time for the Hill Cumorah pageant. I loved that it was 6 hours away, driving through all the trees and rivers around here is my favorite.


The pageant started the second we got there. Everything looked exactly how I remembered it, I was really excited to watch it again.
I went to the pageant 3 years ago, and Ali went last year, so it was exciting to finally go together!

The next morning we toured some more of Palmyra. This is the fireplace where Joseph Smith hid the Golden Plates.

The Smith Farm! Last time I was in Palmyra I convinced/begged/lovingly forced my parents to go through the Sacred Grove at sunrise, so none of the tours were open that early. It was really fun to meet all the missionaries serving there and tour the house and farm,
View of the temple from the Smith farm! There's 2 sisters and 2 brothers here, but not a lot of family resemblance going on at all.

The monument on top of the Hill Cumorah is beautiful.

The Sacred Grove is one of the most peaceful places I've ever been.

You should know that these cones are Kiddie sizes. We went to a place that had a very distorted view of portions.

Everyone went to the Palmyra temple, so I had a little bit of time to explore on my own. I found the Martin Harris farm, but you can't take tours of it. I went back to the Sacred Grove to wait for the group; it was a nice change from all the other times I've waited outside the temple, usually I'm watching a large number of cousins (and sometimes strangers' babies, but that's another story.)

The whole road trip crew outside of the temple.

We drove home late Saturday night and went to church a little exhausted the next day. Ask me to tell you a story about what happens when you're super tired and you're the ward chorister...it can be a bad combination :) Anyways, we got right back in the car the next day to continue our little church history tour and check another state off of my list. Vermont!

Sharon, Vermont to be exact. Joseph Smith's birthplace! It's about 2 hours away, so we added a little more driving to the weekend. That's never a problem with me, I love love being in a car. No one else seemed quite as excited about it, but I think they got over it.

The monument at the Old Smith farm is beautiful! It was a great weekend.

Total hours spent in the car: About 17
Total # of deer hit by anyone we were with: 0
The odds are back in our favor.