Pumpkins and Death

Last Monday we had a magnificent FHE with Tim and Nena (holla!) where we carved pumpkins! Because it's October and Halloweeny and that's what we do.

If you watched last Monday's vlog you will have seen the relative size of the pumpkins Jill and I used to hack away at and mutilate to our heart's content. I must say, our pumpkins turned out rather well. Let me show you with the magic of digital images:

Jill's pumpkin

Jill's pumpkin glowing

Ben's pumpkin

Ben's pumpkin glowing

As you can see, Jill's is a fantastic cyclops-minion pumpkin. It looks awesome.

Mine, well, I tried to do a stormtrooper (you know, from Star Wars). It's close. But if you didn't know what to look for, you might have a hard time distinguishing it from other pumpkins carved by five-year-olds.

So that was last Monday.

Today as we walked outside of our apartment, we looked at our beloved pumpkins (we do that every time we leave. We love them so much). What we saw horrified us beyond reason:

They DIED!

They aged so fast that the mold of life took them oh-so prematurely. We're not exactly sure why they didn't even last a week, but they sure looked good for those couple of days we had them for. Our beloved pumpkins will always remain in our hearts.

Nature, Harley, and Not Much Else

GUYS I'M SO SORRY! It's been FOREVER since this blog has been updated.

We'll do better. Which I believe we said we would do in a previous post, so you can see how well that ended up.

Anyway, a couple things for this post.

First, we took a trip a wee bit up the canyon last week (actually, last last week) and took some pictures of the fall foliage. Unfortunately the leaves weren't entirely changed yet (or in most cases, at all), but we were still able to get some good shots.

Just...look at some of the pictures and smile at nature. Also, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this should help me meet my quota for today's post.

It's pretty awesome to be able to live in an area with this kind of awesome just a short drive away. Sometimes it's nice just to go and be with nature and forget about the hustle and bustle of busy Provo life. Nature's everywhere. Sometimes it's in your back yard, and sometimes you have to drive a ways to find it. Wherever it is, it's a good reminder of God's love for us. I mean just look at that cool red leaf! That is one good lookin' leaf. God must have known it would be admired for its uniqueness, contrasting its red/orange/yellow with the gray rubble of the ground.

And then there's the double waterfalls, spilling water continuously from some unseen spring. I mean, only water can do that. I sure couldn't. Let's be honest, if I were to cascade down a rock face like that, I'd end up really really dead. But the water doesn't die. It runs on. I'm sure there's a gospel lesson in there if we look hard enough (as in really, really hard).

Anyway, nature is awesome.

THING TWO.

Jill rode a motorcycle.

It's okay! Don't worry! She didn't die!

In fact, she even wore a helmet!

My pops was in town on Friday and after an hour or so of begging and pleading, he agreed to take her for a spin on his Harley. What a guy, right!?

Actually I'm going to turn this over to Jill now so she can describe the experience to you in all its glory.

Enter Jill.

What the new sensation!?! I learned how to ride a motorized scooter over the summer and so I was expecting it to be like that but man it was so much better. It was smooth. And scary! Call me a sissy but I leaned against the sissy bar the whole time. It was a very exciting ride around the block and I think it prepped me for the next time I ride who knows when. But thank you Papa K for the ride!

Pics to prove this happened!

Exit Jill.
Enter Ben.

So there you have it, right out of the horse's mouth (no offense, dear).

But we've been having a good couple of weeks. Things have been busy but that's the way we like it.

Also, general conference was great this weekend. We were able to go up to the Saturday afternoon session and sit in for that. Always nice to get tickets to go (thanks Papa J!).

Anyway, that's all for now. I hope everyone else had a great conference weekend and may this week be the best one of your life!

Cheers.

Death Star, Wet Sponges, and Long (Short) Books

Apparently last week's blog post was a cop out. Our apologies to everyone who was waiting with baited breath for an enthralling post about the excitements of our lives. Unfortunately, not every week is as exciting as the Death Star trench run.

Stay on target...

Anyway, since school started Jill has been working her night job while still having early class because I, in my inability to be legal, could not work. So the poor girl has been working late into the night (morning?) and then waking up early to be a good student. I'd tell the whole story of why I wasn't legal to work, but it's boring and, quite frankly, I don't think I even understand it fully. Suffice it to say, I would be shipped back to Canada if I had started working before being authorized.

Fortunately, my employment card finally showed up last week and I was able to get my job back with the MTC doing all their video needs. This means that Jill was finally able to quit her job and get all the sleep she needs! At least, she gets a lot more sleep now than she used to.

I got back to work just in time because last night at devotional Mr. Ballard spoke (M. Russell... Mr...get it? Ok...). Church AV brought their super-nice broadcast truck so we can broadcast to the international MTCs, since our current camera/broadcast situation in our facilities are being upgraded. Funny how "upgraded" means "doesn't quite work yet."

Working with Church AV has some great perks. One such perk is we actually get fed dinner before the devotional. Otherwise we'd have to fend for ourselves.

The second perk is the equipment. This is the cameras they have and we get to use:

Drool...

The lens itself is worth over $25,000. I've absolutely loved all the time we've had working with Church AV. Knowing how to put together and use these crazy-nice broadcast cameras has been amazing. Nerd alert.

But like I said, last night Elder Ballard spoke, and although it's sometimes hard to actually listen to the talk (since I have to focus on getting shots and listen to voices in my head - ie. the director), it's still a huge blessing to just be in the same room as him.

Moving on to this past Monday, Jill had to volunteer at some teacher/parent carnival/party/thing at an elementary school. I was a little nervous, because the last time I was at a carnival-type event I ended up with sopping-wet sponges thrown into my face.

Anything for the kids...

But I digress.

We were assigned to help at the fishing pond booth where kids fished for fish (derp), and when they caught one (ie. when the person hiding behind the blue sheet clipped a laminated paper fish to the paper clip at the end of the child's rod), they could trade it in for a free book! How awesome is that!? Pretty dang awesome. Except that the Iron Man and Captain America books were all in Spanish. But that didn't stop some of the kids from running off with them. The first kid to win a book held up and Iron Man book and asked if we had one in English, since he didn't know Spanish. I said no, but told him he could use the book to learn Spanish! As a joke. Well, I'm not used to interacting with younglings of that age, and so he decided to go with it. Before I could tell him I was joking he had run off with the book, excited as ever.

At least it has fun pictures in it.

Anyway, we had fun helping out and giving out free books.

Speaking of books...

Today I just finished reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. WOWDEEWOWWOW that was a tough one to get through. If you thought the actual Lord of the Rings books were difficult, you should try reading the history of Middle-earth. It's a doosey. But at the same time, it's rather quite interesting (if you're in to histories of fictitious places). Just thought I'd share that with the world. I felt like it was a big enough accomplishment that I deserve to. It's weird, because that book is 304 pages and it took me forever to read it, whereas I can read a book that is gigantic (say, for instance, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan) in just two days.

4 weeks

2 days

Something's wrong with me. But we already knew that.

So that's enough about me and my reading habits. Jill and I will do better at updating this thing and making it interesting for everyone. Have a nice day, and wake me up when September ends.

Today's Blog is a Vlog

In light of nothing terribly exciting happening for us to write about, we decided to leave with all you wonderful people the latest vlog post from my YouTube channel. If you ever had that uncanny desire to snoop around our apartment, now's your chance.

Enjoy.

Also if you haven't yet subscribed to this blog I highly recommend it. Also the YouTube channel (shameless plug).

Ducks, Date Night, and Domestic Abuse

With the start of school this past week we decided to revert back to our childish ways to celebrate. And there is nothing that says "Hey look I'm 5!" like feeding the ducks on campus. Luckily we had some left over hot dog buns to spare so we made a trip over to the duck pond. We were originally sitting on the bottom bench of the amphitheater when Ben had the great idea to move up a few rows, just in case the ducks got close. So Ben took the first chunk of bread and chucked it at a nearby duck. Apparently bread makes a sound when it hits the grass because about 7 ducks turned their head when he threw it started to waddle towards us. Then they all started to invade. They were dropping poop bombs like crazy as they infested the feeding ground. But don't worry we warded them off with crumbs of bread. Only then did I look up to the sidewalk where this girl was standing there, just beaming. I'm pretty sure we made her day. :)

Only after feeding the ducks did we realize how fun it was to be 5 again so we decided to continue to live in the past. For date night we colored from a Star Wars coloring book and built a blanket fort! Oh my gosh is was my favorite. It was an improved coloring experience because both of us can now color in the lines. The drawing even made it to our fridge where it'll probably stay for a while. And the blanket fort lasted two days. It would have lasted longer except our bishopric decided to come for a visit and we decided to destroy the thing. But it was great for when we needed it to watch Doctor Who and eat popcorn. Maybe I did homework in it the next day. Maybe it was the best experience of my life. Why do adult choose to grow up again? 

Now don't forget the domestic abuse! Ok not really but it made for a good alliteration for the title. But really Ben is HiLaRiOuS  when he sleeps. We always try to pray before I go to work at night but we forgot on Sunday. So he told me to just wake him up when I got home (at 2 am) and we (I) would pray. Well I snuck into our room that night and tried to gently wake him. The next think I knew he was flailing and yelling "No! What?! No!" Luckily I had taken a step back because he starting slapping the air around him. I couldn't help but laugh as he was still trying to process what was going on. I'd hate to have an intruder come in at night because they might get slapped to death. But I guess as pay back for scaring him he head butted me in the night in his sleep. It's all fair I guess. :) 

It's been nothing but fun this week. I even tried making some homemade bread in a bread machine  and then I made bread dough in our fancy blender. Both turned out so good that we even took some to our neighbor and got to know him. We even invited him to our ward luau this week. We're just lovin' life and spreading the joy. We love you all!!

Kentucky!

Do you remember that scene in Home Alone where Kevin is at home with all of his family, there are people everywhere, and it's just absolute bonkers? Well, that's kind of what it felt like last week at Jill's house in Kentucky (but in a very good way).

Let's be honest, I (Ben) am the second child of three. There aren't a lot of us. And so being in an environment where there is family everywhere is just...different. As busy and full of people as it was, it was awesome. I had a ton of fun with all of Jill's family (er, my family now, too, I suppose). You think I'm obligated to say that because it's mostly her family reading this. Folks, if I didn't enjoy it, I just wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place :)

For a video blog version of how our week went, check it out here (or just go to the bottom of this post where I gave in and just posted the video on to here). For you readers out there, let's get to it.

We started off the week by waking up at 5 o' stinking clock in the morning on Tuesday. Follow that up with a flight to Texas, mixed with a layover, and continued on with our last flight to Cincinnati, and it sure as heck beats driving.

Day 1 was travel. 'Nuff said.

Day 2 involved driving even more hours to get to Mammoth Cave. For those who don't know what Mammoth Cave is, it's a cave. And it's big. Really big. Mammoth, even.

That's not the cave.

Unfortunately we had to pay to see the cave (unlike some people...). Anyway, we began our three-mile lantern-lit tour by descending into the depths of despair...er, darkness, rather, and from then on out continued in lantern light. It was a really interesting tour, because as we went deeper and deeper into the cave, there was less and less touristy stuff from the old days (old as in 1800's days), and more and more...empty cave. We saw some old writing/images on rocks and walls that, according to Mr. Tour Guide, dated back about 2,300 years ago. Some chump Nephite making his mark on the world.

Our tour guide.

Following the cave we saw where good ol' Abe Lincoln came from. That was also worthy of a picture (mostly as proof that we actually went).

Friday was the day. That is, the day we had the Kentucky version of our wedding reception. It involved lots and lots of lemon-flavored food (which was so good), and a lot of standing and seeing old friends. Well, Jill saw all the friends. I just stood there and looked good. I guess that makes me the trophy husband, amIright!?

Yes, I am.

But it was fun. Jill knows a lot of very nice people. Some were even Irish! And Canadian. And there were some Americans there, too, I think.

But lucky us, we got lots more free stuff! And money. We always need more money. We are so blessed to have been the recipients of such great generosity!

Especially the Star Wars gift. That one wins (obviously).

Look, Star Wars!

We went swimming on Saturday and we all tried to slide the fastest down the slide and yeah anyway, that was the week in a very small nutshell. Basically I love Kentucky. It was a little humid, but nothing worse than the Philippines, so it's all good. And green. Lots of green. But the best part was the people. Sure the house was full and the people were crazy (you know it's true), but that was by far what made the trip as awesome as it was. I'm grateful to be part of that large and crazy family. People apologized to me a lot throughout the week for the chaos and what was said and what people did but don't worry folks! It didn't phase me. I loved every minute of it.

But that doesn't mean we're not moving to Canada :)

__________________

Here's the video I mentioned earlier. It's different content (sort of), so enjoy!

29-Years-Old and Still Drooling

Dentists are pure evil.

On Monday I (Ben) had to go in to their lair of wickedness to have four (4!) cavities filled.

Stop there.

Let me be clear on something first: I was 23-years-old (or older) when I got my first cavity. That means I survived a 2-year mission in the Philippines without a problem. And let's be real, that place can be nasty. Especially for a missionary living like the locals (albeit a little bit more well-off). The food, the water (the filthy, nasty waters), and everything else there just lives to rot your teeth. And I got out scot-free.

And then, two years after I got home, I had one (count 'em, one!) cavity. After that, nothing! Not until now, at least.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand: Evil dentists.

So I had four cavities: three on the left side (top and bottom) and one on my bottom right. The dentist numbed the bottom right and top left portions of my face. He didn't numb the bottom left because, according to him, "It's pretty small so we'll see if we can do it without numbing it." Apparently he didn't want to freeze my entire face. What a nice guy. But my favorite bit was when he said, "Let me know if it hurts."

And then he proceeded to drill into my un-numbed tooth.

I just lay there, bracing for that moment when the drill would shoot through the tooth and into my jaw. Fortunately that never happened, but I did flinch a number of times because, well, it did hurt.

"Does that hurt?" the dentist would ask.

"Mhafegm," I would respond (keep in mind, half my face was numb, and my mouth was propped open with some new-fangled, sci-fi jaw propper-opener thingy).

He gave his condolences, said he was almost done, and to let him know if it kept hurting.

"Mghshjksbm."

So again he began excavating my tooth and again I began flinching (but not saying anything, because I'm a tough rugby player who eats pain for breakfast. Or is it my middle name? I can never remember). Anyway, to make a short story long (too late for that, I'm afraid), he stopped, realized the hole was bigger than he first thought (n00b), and decided to numb that part of my face after all.

So there I was, 3/4 of my face numb, drool quite possible leaking out of my gaping maw, unable to recognize the steady flow of drool because my face was so numbed up. Fortunately though the rest of the procedure went as planned and I was quickly shuffled out of the operating room and into the front to pay.

I think people at the dentist office have a sick sense of humor. They love talking to you when it's blatantly obvious that you cannot answer back with even a single clear syllable.

"How would you like to pay for that?"

"Chfjoke."

"I'll assume you said your soul. Have a nice day!"

But yeah, I paid and got the heck out of there. The numbness lasted at least four hours, during which time I had dinner (or rather, dinner had me. I could not for the life of me find my mouth to insert food), gave the FHE lesson (which who knows if Jill understood a word of it), and biked across town to tour a pioneer museum. Right when I thought my face would be frozen that way forever (just like Mom used to threaten me with if I ever made rude faces), the numbness melted away. I'm saved!

The moral of this story, folks, is this: Don't get cavities. And if you do, don't tell anyone.