Mt. Si

Andrew and I decided to hike Mt. Si on Saturday. It is about 4 miles to the top and a vertical rise of 3700 feet. So it's steep. It's also one of the most popular hikes in the Seattle area, so we felt like we had to do it.

Above and below: A misty morning.


The view from the top:


The blue jay (or something) that moved all over the place so it was hard to get a picture.


Andrew practicing his elk call. Let's just advertise it, my honey: "WE ARE REDNECKS!"

The top. We decided it was the top (you'll see why in a bit).


Singing "Climb Every Mountain!" as I climbed to the top.



Me on the top. :)


And to the North we saw this thing. It is called the Haystack, and not a lot of people climb it. I kind of get the feeling that it is kind of like Angel's Landing, only a little more dangerous. We couldn't decide if we were on the summit of Mt. Si or if that was the summit. We did not climb it.


The lovely scenery.


On the way down, we went on the Talus Loop trail. It was so nice cuz we only saw three other groups instead of thirty. Yes, it was .3 miles longer than the main trail, but the ground was soft and not as steep. Therefore, it was so so much better to go down.


Mt. Si was a good hike. Going up was really hard, as was coming down. But we probably won't do it again for a while (if ever) because of all the people. Hikes really are more enjoyable when you don't see another group all the time.

Davis High School Class of 2006

Today I realized that I graduated from high school five years ago. It was sometime in June 2006. Go Darts! I was ready to leave high school, but I had a great time. I don't have any pictures of my graduation (those are all at my parents' house) so you will have to live with some senior pictures.

Me, sitting on a very cold rock.


Me being skinny. Note to self: get skinny again. (What am I doing differently? I don't do colorguard, I don't walk my dog 2 miles a day. Also, nowadays I take birth control, which I secretly suspect for my weight gain; sit on my butt for four to five hours at work; and walk/stroll to and from campus each weekday (one-way is about 0.89 mile, but closer to 1 mile if I go with Andrew to the engineering area). But anyway, this post isn't supposed to be about how plumpy I am.)


Me with my cello, trusty Sam. Can I just say that I have never seen such an attractive cello as Sam? I love that he isn't glossy like all the other cellos. I was really good at the cello as a senior. Maybe someday I'll get back into it, but we'll see if I ever have two to three hours a day to devote to an instrument until I'm 70. However, I still play. :)


Me with my flag. I think I look a lot like my mom in this picture. I was in colorguard all through high school. It was a good time, but it's a part of my life that is over. I still enjoy a good spin every once-in-awhile.

High school was a great time. Here are some of the highlights:

• Being in colorguard.
• Getting a driver's license.
• Going on some ridiculous dates that make for great stories (involving blood and another time involving gasoline, Febreeze, and exotic fruit juices).
• Having a boyfriend.
• Having said boyfriend's mother think my sole purpose in life was to make her son unworthy to serve a mission. Ha ha.
  
• Having so much fun in a string quartet.
• Getting awesome bruises from my flag.
• Getting a dog.
• A first kiss.
• Kissing two guys in one night for the fun of becoming a True Dart.
• Being a Social Sciences Sterling Scholar.
• Being wooed by different universities throughout the country.
• Summoning the courage to tube on the lake again (but still no waterskiing)
• Getting all A's and never getting all H's (on citizenship). Getting all A's and all H's is embarrassing.
• Making my English teacher cry.
• Crocheting through English class (different year) and making the teacher mad.
• Being stung by a wasp on my boob.
• Being really really really tan.
• Going to band camp. Wait, that wasn't a highlight.
• Passing the AP Calculus BC test with a 5!
• Not having to take science classes for two years.
• Being in a civics classes with brainless cheerleaders and braindead football players and having the teacher wonder how I keep doing so much better than my classmates.
• Learning an awesome cello concerto.
• Having way fun with my friends.
• Chilling in a place we christened the "Beer Hall"--not that any of us drank beer.
• Having a curfew.
• Making my parents enforce my curfew so I wouldn't have to stay at stupid parties.
• Founding a major weekly holiday still celebrated today (I think) called Cute Butt Day, which is celebrated each Wednesday and is a celebration of butt slapping.
  
• And making tons of other crazy memories with my friends Erika, Monica, Nicole, Kayleigh, Becky, and Kevin.
  

I have done a lot of other amazing things since then, but high school was a great time. But I'm really glad it's over.

Marshmallows!

Marshmallows are so good.

Andrew is a bird whisperer. Scooter (who only likes Leslie) loved him.

Matt holding baby Emma at the marshmallow roast.


Little Andrew and Big Andrew eating their marshmallows. I love this picture. :D

Chilling with Phil and Keola

YAY!! Andrew came to Utah for the weekend and I was happy. We spent Saturday afternoon with our friends Phillip and Keola. They live in Laei, Hawaii. We went to their wedding.


Here, Phil uses the smallest club for the game. An old man came and tried to give Phil his larger one. He didn't get that he was being silly.

Andrew putting. He is so attractive when he golfs.

Keola got a hole in one!

Me pretending to real golf.

Then we went to Provo Canyon to see the Bridal Veil Falls. I have never been there before.

Andrew's fat picture. He bent the bench. (it was already like that, but just pretend)

The water here is A LOT colder than it is in Hawaii.

Me at the Falls.

Sticking our feet in the water. :) I love sticking my feet in ice-cold water, and I'm not kidding.



Andrew sticking his feet in the water. He was impressed with how long I could keep my feet in the water. What can I say? I'm tough.


Me and Andrew at Bridal Veil Falls!

There millions of inch worms on the trail. They dangled from the trees from threads. It was gross cuz they would get on our clothes.

What I Learned In Hong Kong

I learned a lot on our international adventure to Hong Kong. Here are a few of them.

• Monkeys are not cute but are scary.
• Injured eyes hurt like heck, but they heal fairly quickly. (I forgot to include this in the hospital post, but they gave me some pain medication for whenever it hurt, some antibacterial eyedrops for every three hours, and some eye neosporin that I had to put on my cut four times a day.)
  
• It's hard when you don't speak the language BUT you begin to recognize some words AND you can sort of understand a conversation based on facial cues and body language.
• Interpretation is an amazing skill. So many people speak good English and helped me at Church or in other conversations.
  
• Normal Chinese food is not what people who love you want to feed you. You will eat a lot of meat and not lose weight.
• My feet hurt more than I ever thought possible by the end of the trip. Each day it seemed like it was earlier and earlier to when my feet would reach the peak of pain of the previous day, and then it would just get worse.
• I don't really like shopping. Probably cuz it made my feet hurt more than walking.
• Humidity makes things super hot.
• Humidity is nice cuz my hands didn't crack and my nose never bled. :)
• The Pacific Ocean is huge and that plane ride is insanely long. My feet swelled up and my knees ached. But I learned that an extra pillow on my low back helped my tailbone to not hurt on the ride--not once.
  
• There are so many beautiful things to see in the world and you just need to appreciate the things around you, wherever you are. Hong Kong is so beautiful, green, lush, and the mountains are stunning, but when we got back I had an appreciate for the diversity and natural beauty existing in the Great Basin. See? Find the beauty wherever you are.
• Chinese people are really nice and clean. I never felt uncomfortable on a really crowded MTR train like I have in the U.S.
• Many people think we are so wealthy and lucky to live in the U.S., which sometimes made me a little uncomfortable. Being in Hong Kong gave me an appreciation for being an American, especially where I study negative things in the U.S.'s past that make me critical of the nation. But I am healthy, I have more money than most of them, I can get a college education, I have many opportunities for work.
  
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true--and it is the same all over the world. Going to Church was really fun, and because it was all through an interpreter I had to pay more attention and I got a lot out of the meetings we went to.
• I am also really lucky to have a Temple near to me. There is one in Hong Kong, but LDS members from China, Thailand, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka have to travel to Hong Kong to receive the ordinances of the Temple. (see http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/hongkong/district/)
• You can come to love people very quickly.
• I love Andrew and I loved getting to know a place he loves so much.
• My trip to Hong Kong didn't go the way I imagined it would. I was more tired than I thought I would be. Weird situations came up that made parts of the trip downright unpleasant. It smelled funny a lot of the time. The buildings were tall and overwhelming. There were SO SO many people everywhere and a lot of noise. The weather was hot and sticky and humid and it made me cry. Andrew even said he didn't think I liked being at Hong Kong very much. Well let me tell the world: it was a lot to take in, and I was a little stunned, but I think I don't have a romanticized vision of Hong Kong. Because some bad things happened, I was able to see the good and bad parts of Hong Kong, just like any place.
• My favorite thing about Hong Kong was the people we met that meant to much to Andrew. Now they mean a lot to me. I love the Chan family, the Los, Angela, and his younger friends Calvin, Dick, Elma, and Chris.

Hong Kong is such a interesting place. I am really glad that we leaped on the opportunity to go. I hope we can go back so I can have another experience there, one that will hopefully go better with less mishaps. But despite the things that went wrong, a lot of stuff went right and it was great. Plus, I got to spend a lot of time with Andrew and see him be really really happy.

Hong Kong Day 8 (Saturday)

This was our last day in Hong Kong, and it sure started with a bang.

I got to go to the hospital! Yay!

Here I am, at 2-3 a.m., in pain. It was awesome. I had a corneal abrasion and it was awesome. Let me tell you, going to the hospital that early is so great cuz no one is there. Andrew thought I was a baby, but it really hurt.

In the train, we saw this awesome sign:

Makes you want to get a hair transplant, doesn't it?


These are the MTR trains. I really liked riding the train.

We rode out to Yuen Long. It is a "rural" part of Hong Kong and where Andrew spent a good deal of time.

We had breakfast with these great people. Andrew, me, Joyce, the Filipina helper's friend who kept saying I have an amazing life because I live in America, and Angela (in the wheelchair). Angela was so sweet and loves missionaries. She spoke really good English. She told us not to come back until we have a baby to show her.

And then we went to the end of the MTR line to Tuen Muen and walked around a bit. I think it was Andrew's first area.

This is the Church.

I told Andrew that if we lived in Hong Kong, I would want to live out here. I liked that it wasn't as busy and I thought the countryside was beautiful. He reminded me that even fewer people speak English here. I guess if we moved to Hong Kong I would have to learn Cantonese.

See--rural.


Those buildings in the distance are in mainland China.

That evening, the Bishop Lee of the Sha Tin ward invited us to a dinner party.
I can't name everyone, but I came to love them a lot. I would also live in Sha Tin.

Creeps

Good news! Our credit card number appears to have been stolen.

This is the third time that something like this has happened to me and I AM SICK OF IT.

I'm really careful with my card and I am cautious shopping on the internet.

The first time I got a call from a debt collection agency and it wasn't my debt. This Las Vegas credit card had been opened when I was 16. I had to get a detective and everything.

The second time I got a letter from a debt collection agency and I told them it wasn't my debt. I didn't follow through with that one as well cuz I had just gotten married and was in denial.

This time, someone made purchases at Paramount Supplements for male enhancement supplements, anti aging, prohormones, and ephedra diet pill. And the other purchase was at WrestleMania. Both came out of Cincinnati.

I'm not happy. I'm sick of people stealing my identity. Get your own.

BE HONEST! for goodness sake.

Enjoy some identity theft commercials:

I feel like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VTIBlUyuqk

And this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KERwnA8VfFM

And something from The Office cuz it aired about the first time my identity was stolen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC5imk9sG1M

Because seriously, am I the sort of girl who orders male enhancements and stuff from WrestleMania?