Wherever life takes us...: November 2009

Friday, November 20, 2009

Chapter 3: Life

I've been a horrible slacker about updating my blog. I guess that sometimes it's harder to find the adventure in life with the monotony of school and the ever increasingly cold weather. However, I've been able to find some. On nice weekends Joey and I go for walks/hikes along the many--and I mean many trails in Duluth. They're cool because you don't feel like you're in the city when you are on them because of all the trees. This last weekend we were on one that ran along a creek that was partially frozen. It was so beautiful--even when we found the biggest rocks we could dislodge from frozen ground and threw them in attempt to break the ice. It's kind of like the game only cooler :). During the week when it's dark and cold we cook. We're always making random foods--which can be an adventure in and of itself. Finding the recipes, tweaking them, making mistakes all contribute to cooking adventure. We discovered an amazing apple pie recipe on allrecipes.com (I love this website! If you ever need a recipe this is the place to go) as well as pillsbury pie crust. They are amazing! They taste good and are fairly easy to work with--at least it was a lot easier to make the lattice top with this than frozen ones or even homemade ones. It worked out great. I've also been learning about staple midwest meals (or maybe just northland meals, I wouldn't really know the difference) such as chicken and wild rice soup, and honeycrisp apples that stay crispy for several months in the fridge, top the tater--a sour cream with chives in it that tastes really good with potato chips and, tater tot "hot dish" aka casserole. You can learn so many things in new places. Speaking of learning, I do study--a lot. I complain about school quite a bit but, in reality I like it. I like learning so many new and interesting things. Sometimes the process is a little challenging but isn't everything worthwhile? Sometimes, I don't really feel like I'm in graduate school. I'm a master's student right? I should be an expert right? Wrong. I still don't feel like I know anything. If anything it feels like a strange extension of my undergrad work except that everybody is something of an over-achiever. Even those who are less so than others are still over achievers. I suppose it comes with the territory.

About Us

Melissa's Version:

Joey and I met in September 2010 when Melissa decided to leave her friends and family and move to Duluth, Minnesota for graduate school. Coming from BYU this was a big change and I didn't expect to do much dating at all. We met two weeks or so after I arrived and I was immediately interested. He just "seems like my type of person," I reflected that night. We saw each other every night that week and he didn't waste any time finding out if I would date him. I guess we both knew what we wanted because we've been together ever since.

Joey's Version:

So here's the Real version of how we met:

We first met at some YSA broadcast at the church on a Sunday night, early September in Duluth. Since there were a number of new people there (new school year and all), we were still in the chapel afterwards chatting and getting to know each other some. And there was this girl who kept on looking at me... even though everyone else was facing the other direction she kept turning around to check me out. I personally thought this was a little forward, but I guess that's how they do things in Utah.

Flash forward to the next night... there was a FHE event at her house that evening, bunch of people there including the missionaries. People talked, blah, blah blah... so afterwards we were eating our dessert snack and the 2 of us talked some more, getting to know each other. She won't admit it, but she was checking me out quite a bit during all of this.

So jump to the next night at Mutual at the church. After the lesson some people are talking about going down to the Lake Walk for a lil stroll. I announce how it's better if you go running on it, not just walking. This is when my future-wife loudly announces "Oh! I'd love to do that too! I'll go with you!" If she wasn't so cute I'd think she belonged in a looney bin.

So we change and I go to her house to pick her up.. we go down to the Lake Walk and go for a run.. We were both pacing each other very well, something that's hard to find in a running partner, so I had good feelings for her. We met the others, but they were still walking so we kept going. And all this time the waves were HUGE.. the biggest I've ever seen down there. We get back to where I parked the car but we see these 3 or 4 teenagers out in the waves, playing and jumping in them. I talk her into trying it out and so we take off our socks n shoes and go on in too. As cold as the wind was, the water was actually pretty warm.. so we played in there.. every time a big wave came at us she's squeal out and clutch my body. It's a dirty job, but someone had to do it. So we got out and headed back to her place for some hot chocolate...

And that's the REAL story of how we met