Family Reunion and DC united

Before I start my post about this last week I must post this: I love the movie Dan in Real Life. It is so cute and I can't stop singing--let my love open the door... Also, Richard made some really good oatmeal cookies tonight (I guestioned his abilities and even made him show me the cookbook because I thought he was doing it wrong--he wasn't and they are great).

I come from a very large family with over 20 cousins on each side, whereas Rich's parents are both only children, so he has 0 first cousins (Can you imagine that...I still can't-after 4 years-fathom life without cousins). Anyway, his grandfather was one of 9, so he does have a large extended family that has a family reunion every Labor Day weekend in Luray, Virginia. I went to my first one two years ago and we got there, ate, had a ten minute presentation, talked and everyone left after 2 hours (everyone is pretty old, though). This was so different than what I grew up with (week long family reunions with games, quizes on family history and adventures with the cousins). The family reunion this last weekend was the same as the first one I attended. What are your family reunions like??

The best part of the reunion was when we showed up (about 30 minutes late). Rich's great uncle was sitting outside listening to the Virginia Tech game (ahh...quality family time.)

Here's Uncle Julian holding his radio.

Then that night we went to a DC United soccer game with our good friends Ben and Diana. The game was good, not great. It was a 0-0 tie, which is sort of a bummer, but it was still fun.

Here's us at the game.

Our "Flower and Fruit Anniversary"

You know that the Silver Anniversary is the 25th year and the Golden Anniversary is the 50th, but did you know that the 4th year is the Flower and Fruit Anniversary? We didn't know either, so we celebrated our 4th Anniversary without Fruit and without Flowers. It was still great. We went out to eat at an interesting little restraunt in the Fan (the kind of artsy/college town part of Richmond). The food was great and we had a good time reminicsing about our favorite memories from the past 4 years.

Here are the top ten:

Raking the leaves

Eating a great dinner in San Diego for our first anniversary

Cooking Together (especially homemade pizza)

Playing on a Coed soccer team

Going to a Ben Folds Concert together

Take Physics together (I know geeky, but we got to spend more time together in class)

Having Rich read me the Harry Potter series

Exercising together

Temple trips

Sitting by each other at graduation

Change

In You've Got Mail (the world's best movie) Kathleen Kelly says, "People always say that change is a good thing, but what it really means is that something that you didn't want to happen, has happened."

One of Rich's family's favorite vacation spots is Tides Inn and it is just off the Rappahanock River. I have been hearing about this place for years. They are always telling me about Tides Inn and the Miss Ann (a very old yacht that is owned by the resort). Well this weekend I finally got to experience it (it was amazing!!). However, when we got on the boat we were told that the Miss Ann had been sold and would no longer be a part of the Tides Inn experience.

It was sad to hear the boat captain talk about that change. I guess that is why it is important to enjoy things while they are around. Bon Voyage, Miss Ann!

My Hike - By Richard

So, almost 3 weeks ago I flew out to Utah by myself to meet up with my BYU Roommate, Kendal, and his brother and nephew, Paul and Tanner, and two other BYU homies, McKay and Andy. Our plan: to tackle the High Uintahs, in a little spot called Granddaddy Basin. We left Sunday morning and drove about two hours up Provo Canyon to the trailhead, where we hit the latrine one last time, signed our group in, and took off. We stopped about 10 minutes later so this boy from the lowlands could catch his breath.

We hiked about 4 miles in over Hades pass, and stopped to camp at the namesake for the valley, Granddaddy Lake. It rained just a little, which was nice, because the mosquitoes were horrible otherwise (but only on this first night). Unfortunately, we had no luck with the fish at this lake, but it was pretty.

The next day, after ruining one pot trying to cook cinnamon rolls, we headed off for a spot that we were sure was going to be good fishing, because Paul had read about it in a hiking guide (note the foreshadowing). This is what we saw one the way:

We got a little lost, but eventually, we found the lake; it was beautiful, but there were zero fish. This is how Andy reverted to fishing:

We had a lot of fun in that COLD mountain lake water, but we decided we'd give one more lake a try the next day. That night, and I wish I'd taken a picture, Andy lit his chest hair on fire - on purpose. It was a controlled burn, to "trim things up," and yes, it was hilarious.

The next day though, we hiked to a place called fish hatchery lake, and sure enough, there were plenty of fish there, here's what it looked like that night, and then the next morning as we were packing up:

Kendal was the big fisherman, and caught a lot of our fish (and so did Andy) so we ate pretty well. If it was that, it was tuna or bagels or something else tasty, so while we were "roughing it" it wasn't so bad. Honestly, I'm excited to do it again sometime.

Confession

Rich's board score came in the mail last week and I was sitting around last Sunday watching it on the table unopened. The temptation was too much for me so I thought, I won't open it, but maybe if I hold it up to the light I might be able to see what it says. Then as I was holding up to the light I realized the envelope wasn't sealed all the way. I lifted the edge and the only thing I could read was, "candidate does not meet requirements..." I freaked out. What do I do now? I can't call him and tell him he didn't pass, so I decided to seal the letter back up and pretend it never happened. I picked him up from the airport that night and when we got in I told him to open his board scores. I tried not to pace and rehearsed my you-are-still-smart-I-love-you-no-matter-what-it's-okay-you'll-pass-next-time-speech, when he said, "yes, I passed." I ran over to him and said, "what?!?!? Show me where it says that." He showed me and sure enough it said pass. Then I tried to figure out what I saw. I found it, in small print it said "candidate does not meet requirments for certifcation at this time." (meaning he still had finish dental school and take the other two portions of the test before he could practice dentistry). Well, needless to say, I am happy that he did pass and I learned my lesson about snooping in other people's mail.