Shaken

Bad morning yesterday. I didn't have time to write about it then but I was probably too shaken up to be coherent. On my way into work I have to change highways (from I-485 to I-77). The interchange has only two lanes (a third lane branches off to the South). For those of you have never driven with me, I'm a little bit of tailgater. Fortunately I had just promised my husband to do better so I wasn’t really all that close to the car in front me. Unfortunately, there was half a second where I smelled burning rubber and that was all the warning I got. The tire on the red Corolla (Toyota, go figure) in front of me literally flew off. It bounced off the car’s back rim and bumper and then flew across the next lane onto the side of the road where it hit the guard rail. The car’s rim slammed into the road and shot a curtain of gravel straight into the air that then engulfed my car (who knew that the car rim would rip up the road that bad?)

Some God-given instinct kicked in and I was able to swerve into the lane to my left just before it veered off (the lane to my right was full of cars so I was particularly blessed to have moved to the left) in time to get around the hailstorm of gravel and the almost unbelievably fast breaking car in front of me. By the time I got out of immediate danger I realized there was no way I could get back to check on the Corolla as there is nowhere to turn around for several miles. Then I freaked out knowing that Kelly was just seconds behind me, so I hurried and called him to warn him to get into the other lane.

It was a crazy morning; by the time I got to work I almost couldn’t believe it had really happened. I’ve never heard of a tire just flying off of a car like that! Kelly asked me if the tire had shredded but no it hadn’t. It had flown off and bounced as a round, full of air tire. It was honestly one of the craziest things I’ve ever scene.

We’d also like to wish our condolences to Sui’s family at this time. Her father passed away on Monday. So if you get a spare moment please say a little prayer for her family in their time of loss.

Lots of love to everyone.

Crazy South? Or Sheltered Utah Girl?

We've been here for two and half years and I keep thinking I'm done being surprised. When we first got here we both thought "Wow, this isn't that different from back home." Little by little I have been shown how juvenile this first thought was!

From Nascar to barbeque we have been slowly opened up to a whole new world. (I have also managed to completely embarrass myself a hundred+ times, but we’ll save that for another time) For many months now I thought I had the South figured out from fried chicken to pork rinds (popped one in my mouth before I knew what it was, needless to say I never swallowed).

However, I was walking documents over to my ASIAN co-worker’s desk (whose from the South, its weird) this afternoon and pulled up short when I saw he had two hotdogs covered in white stuff. YUCK! Appalled I asked him what he had on his hot dogs. His answer was “Mayonnaise and Coleslaw.” He said this like ‘duh! What else would have on a hot dog?’ My face undoubtedly registered my horror. Where’s the ketchup? Where’s the mustard? Is there something wholly inadequate with relish? Apparently not only is coleslaw the staple condiment to a barbeque pork sandwich here (something I had already been startled with) but it is also a HOT DOG condiment? It totally grossed me out but maybe I was just sheltered back home.

I must defer to my western counter parts, this is NOT normal is it?????

Food Storage and Montana

Kelly thinks I'm slowly going crazy. Well maybe not so slowly. Last year I was really into planning the garden I would one day like to have. I began looking up what plants grow well here in North Carolina (cherry trees don't, a problem that made me seriously consider leaving the state forever) and laying out where I'd like to place everything in this make believe backyard. He first thought I'd lost it when I told him I would like several acres of land to plant in and that my garden would wholly inadequate without the addition of a bee hive. He and all of our friends have since been making fun of my ‘bee idea.’ Which I still hold to as being completely reasonable given that otherwise I’d have to pollinate several plants by hand!

Well, to make a possibly lengthy story short: I was instead turned on to food storage as a means of becoming self-sufficient. Our good friends Sui and Marianne are amazing at getting their food storage together. (Especially Marianne, she’s like a mormon Wonder Woman when it comes to food storage) As I am far from being as competent as either of these women I had to find some help. Thanks to a few trusty websites I have now been able to begin stocking up our pantry. Kelly has accused me of bullying him into buying several things but has since willingly admitted that they have been good purchases (Ah, victory!)

I've now obtained permission to begin saving up for my own wheat grinder! :) I'm so excited. I've already picked out all the recipe books I'm going to buy with it. My amazon wish list is getting incredibly long.

After picking up this new hobby I've since been informed by my beloved husband that he'll buy me my land if we move to MONTANA! I looked at him like he was out of his mind. I still think he's out of him mind. Montana? I told him I'd only go if he bought me 20 acres of land complete with a Ranch house, stables and horses. He just smiled and said 'Okay.' Thank heaven's the chances of a Montana law firm interviewing at law schoools all the way out here is slim to none so I think we're safe where we are :)

Well that's all from our crazy plot of North Carolina. Lots of love!

Hawaii!

Here they are, some of your pictures from Hawaii.

This is one of the ponds around our hotel:

Hammerhead Shark also located in hotel ponds (don't accidentally fall in!):

Flower Kelly gave me:

These are the private bay's that the hotel owns. There are four of them which is really nice because they weren't crowded. Actually one of the bay's is own by Disney now, they are building the new hotel right next to the one we stayed at.

Us at the Dole Plantation:

Chocolate Hupia Pie from Ted's Bakery:

The Temple, met Sui's mom in the parking lot in front of the vistor's center:

The Submarine at Pearl Harbor:

Kelly:

Mikel:

Pearl Harbor/ The Arizona Memorial:

That's about all I can get up right now. I'll put up some more soon :)

Pictures from the Barbeque Festival

Okay, here they are!!! Some of our pictures. Actually we have two from our trip to the Barbeque festival that happened several weeks before but are kind of fun.

First here's one of me in front of the vineyard:

Next is one of the an amazing sand castle that they were building! (There are no pictures of Kelly from the Festival as he really didn't like it)

We're Back

I feel like we've finally gotten off a roller-coaster. The holiday's are always busy but WOW this year was intense. A large part of that is due to the fact we are just getting better from a very nasty round with the common cold. Who knew it could be that horrible?

I will, as promised by trying my hardest, hardest, HARDEST to put up pictures of Hawaii tonight. So long as Kelly helps me find the right cords and shows me how to upload them on the new labtop.

Quick update on our holidays. We stayed here this year, which as great! We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house with Marrianne and then we trooped over to Sui's. We were supposed to be breaking in (Marrianne has a key to their apartment) so that we could stuff their stockings. (They have these HUGE stockings and the have never stuffed them so we decided it was high time to change that) However, Sui got home from her dinner much sooner than we had anticipated so instead we had to kidnap the stockings, take them to the back room and stuff them out of sight while Kelly 'distracted' Sui. Of course Sui knew what we were doing the whole time but it was fun anyway.

Christmas morning was a blast! We spent the better part of the morning learning how to play Rock Band. We had dinner at the Rees's house with their family and the Sloan's. Ainsley Sloan had me in tears with her live performance of Bon Jovi!!! We loved dinner and our time with the Rees's. Their boys are so cute!

New Years of course is always a big deal for us. We go to the Harris's and watch all three Lord of the Rings the extended versions. That's right, the extended versions. We start at 9 in the morning and usually end between 10-11 pm just in time for the New Year! It was fabulous. Sui and Mo weren't able to make it this year (sigh) but we had a ton of fun with Marianne and Randall! Marianne knows more about the movies and Tolkien than anyone I know. She makes it so fun and interesting it's like watching the movies for the first time all over again! This year I realized I'd lost some of the 'magic' you feel as a child. About half way through the movies I looked over and just saw it glowing from Marianne's face and I thought "What's wrong with me? I love these movies and all that they stand for." So I really tried to focus in on finding that again and by the end I think I had reconnected with a small part of that. I got all misty-eye'd during Sam's speech at the end of the second movie and was struggling with tears at the end of the third. 'Rekindling the magic' (in all of life not just Lord of the Rings) has now become one of my New Year's resolutions!

Well enough with that! It's time to head home and try to upload those pictures. Lots of love!