TRUE LOVE

Recently I realized that Zach was watching me make hideous faces in the mirror while removing unwanted facial hair and that it didn’t bother me at all.

 I NEVER would have let Zach catch me doing this or any other personal hygiene process back when we were “madly in love.” 

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “The romance must truly be gone.” 



Why yes, those flowers ARE
in a repurposed peanut butter
jar.



But then I remembered that just this last week Zach brought me flowers and a bag full of cherries just because I said I liked them.

And just this last week he served me a SECOND piece of the delicious cake he made even though I’m supposed to be cutting weight for the marathon. 

And just this last week he let me pick where to go for treats after our temple trip, even if it meant he was stuck eating frozen yogurt out of a Hello Kitty bowl with a Hello Kitty spoon.

And just this last week he came home from a long day at work and found me STILL on the couch watching a documentary even though I’d gotten home almost two hours before him and I didn’t have dinner even started because I just did not want to cook.  Instead of commenting on my lack of consideration for his hungry belly he sat down with me, started rubbing my unshaven legs, and told me he’d heard of this great falafel place we should try for dinner. 

 Talk about true love.

Speaking of true love,  Zach said he would have an affair with
this food.  So good. 

I’ve decided we’re still madly in love.  It’s just a different kind of mad.

AN ODE TO PARENTS

You know you have fantastic parents when they’re willing to take a three day weekend and use it to drive 8 hours across a barren wasteland to trade their roomy, comfortable, powerful Honda Pilot for their children’s 11 year-old Ford Focus hatchback so that said children can use the high capacity vehicle to move all their stuff in two weeks while said parents are saddled with a much less snazzy car.

I have beyond fantastic parents.  Not only did they bring their car and drive our car back, but they let Zach and me play tour guide and haul them around Boulder like kindergarteners at Show-and-Tell for a whole weekend while they secretly bought us things like pastry cutters, delicious dinners, and ice cream.  Lots of ice cream.  (Zach really isn’t that big on ice cream.  Greatest disappointment of my marriage to date.)

Zach had to work Saturday so I got them ALLLL to myself when they arrived.  We immediately went to my favorite Saturday hangout- the Farmers Market.  My parents have traveled the world, but they managed to be mildly impressed with the delicious gyros and falafel and massive bags of lettuce.  The real “wowza” came from Dad when we hit the all-natural ice cream.  Thank you Boulder.

We took a trip up and down Pearl Street where I discovered the painting that I will someday base my entire house décor off and then afterwards went to check out their completely Boulder hotel:

Yes, you do see multiple colors on every wall.  Classic hippie style.

Due to a lucky coincidence Mom and Dad happened to be there the same Sunday that Zach and I gave talks in Sacrament Meeting.  A word on talks: I write good talks, I really do.  My problem is the delivery.  I get up on that stand and my adrenaline takes over, leaving me in a Matrix-like state where everything around me slows down and my brain kicks it into high gear.  Hence I can give a 15 minute talk in five minutes.  Luckily I’ve been practicing so this time I took eight. 

Zach: This is true.  I like to say she has "more spiritual insights per minute" than I do.  When I try to go that fast, all I get is an error signal from my brain...

After church we tried to wear my parents out by taking them on a hike in the Flatirons but were pretty unsuccessful because they’re in crazy good shape from biking.  My dad tells me he wants to be the “Active Grandparents”.  I tell him good luck competing with the Judkins for THAT title.

I’m beginning to realize (especially after living here this summer) how blessed Zach and I are to have such a supportive family.  Everyone is involved, everyone cares, and we all have a blast together.  Thanks for the visit Mom and Dad!

MAYBE IT'S A PERK

There are pros and cons to being in a major full of guys like Facilities Management.  On the plus side, I never feel obligated to bring homemade gourmet cupcakes to study groups.  On the other side, as one of the only girls you're used as a poster child for the program, as if they’re trying to prove that, “Look!  We DO have girls* in the program!  We’re so diverse.**”
*3
**White, middle-class Mormon males from Utah AND California

They even took a picture of me with a serious, near-blink face posing with a set of plans and plastered it all over the engineering buildings.  I feel so good knowing that my legacy at BYU will be “that one girl with squinty eyes by the History of Creativity classroom”.


But sometimes there are SERIOUS perks to being a poster girlchild, like an all-expenses paid trip to Atlanta for a weekend to attend a conference where I can network and collect sweet swag like crazy.


Me and my two fellow students Allen and Colin were easily the youngest people there by a good 20 years, but that didn’t stop us from having a blast as we met with hundreds of professionals, collected dozens of business cards, ran around the expo floor, and sat through educational seminars. 

This conference was my first encounter with the “wine and dine” experience:  every night different company professionals took us out to dinner or drinks to convince us to work for them.  After $60 pork medallions and all the virgin pina coladas I could drink I was definitely considering it.


Special thanks to my boss John Morris for personally introducing me to all the APPA royalty and talking up my research.  Everyone I met was so nice and genuinely interested in me and my projects.  Facilities people are so awesome- I thank my lucky stars yet again that my Dad talked me out of being an English major.

Between all the conference activities and bribing we found time to live it up in Atlanta.  Did you know that Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola?  Yeah, and I thought the one in Vegas was cool…

Atlanta is also home to the World’s Largest Aquarium.  When I was two I forced my older brothers to listen to my favorite “Baby Baluga” song CONSTANTLY, and now I’ve finally seen the real deal.

As much as I miss my lovely hotel room with the King size bed and all the fluffy white towels my heart could desire, I would still trade air conditioning and room service for being home with Zach any day.

4TH OF JULY, BOULDER STYLE

We hope everyone had an amazing 4th of July, full of family, food and fireworks.

Even through we were away from the clan, we still had our wee family...


We still had food...

Thanks to the other lovely Student Housing couples in the Boulder Ward for letting us join their BBQ!

We had fireworks at Folsom Field...

And we had a little extra something totally Boulder:

This is Ralphie, the CU mascot.  She leads the football teams as they come out onto the field and even does a lap of victory before the firework display.  I thought is was pretty darn cool, and if I were the opposing football team, I would be intimidated.  BYU should definitely follow suit with a real Cosmo.

Zach: Apparently, after this video, they replaced her with a slower Ralphie (Ralphie 5).  I must say I enjoy the thought of running the mascot through the field, although it might be slightly less of an event for TCU (the Horned Frog), University of Arkansas (the Boll Weevils), and North Carolina School of Arts (the Fighting Pickles).  This Fourth of July will not be one I'll easily forget!

COLORADO: A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP

Last week was the official half-way mark of our time in Boulder, and my feelings are very mixed.  I'm sure that in fifty years we'll talk about how great this whole summer was for us and how we have nothing but fond memories of being Bouldarians.   But in the moment, I'm pretty half and half.

I love spending so much time with Zach just the two of us, but I hate being away from family and friends.

I love the hippie markets and hilarious scenes of women collecting their completely organic lunches from beneath trees on the side of the trail, but I hate the hippie leaf (and its accompanying smell) and lack of supportive undergarments.

I love the beautiful Colorado summer, but hate that we're stuck in an apartment with no airconditioning on the 5th floor with west-facing windows.

I love that Colorado works so hard to preserve their epic mountains and scenery, but hate that it means absolutely no campfires allowed, and while you're at it, just don't camp at all.

It's perhaps this last one that has tipped the scales towards hate strong dislike this weekend.  One reason that Zach and I were so excited to take the internships here was that we could  plan to go camping every weekend in the plethora of outdoors that is Colorado.

But nooooo.

After purchasing all our gear, finally having a weekend available, researching a decent, non-day HIKE, we carefully packed our backpacks (thanks for the training Dad!) and headed for the hills.

Are you proud Dad? 

The hills proved difficult to navigate, but after a few wrong turns we made it to our trailhead.  It was "CLOSED FOR THE WINTER".  Really Colorado?  It's JULY. 

Only slightly daunted, we turned around, hoping to find a place where we could park our car and hike off with our packs.  Everywhere we drove, we saw signs saying "NO CAMPING", "PRIVATE PROPERTY"  and "PICNIC AREA ONLY".  The signs followed us all the way home.

Zach: To conclude, Colorado camping appears to be a misnomer.  Defeated, we took some picture of the beautiful, untouched, and un-camped in land (seen above), drove home and took solice in our oven cooked tinfoil dinners.  Sadly, the hiking goodies we packed dissapeared that same night.  Clarissa says she's saving them until next camp-out.  hmmm... maybe that's what happened...