The Normal Mormon Husband

Dang, this guy is hilarious. If you're a Twilight fan, you must read this! It's freaking hilarious!
http://mormonhusbands.blogspot.com/
I'm very much looking forward to Part 2. I laughed so hard that I was crying ... at my desk at work. Good times!

Fantastic weekend

After our disastrous attempt to go last week (read here), we finally made it to Six Flags. We went on Friday and it was perfect! Weather was gorgeous, lines were short, and Cory is my all-time favorite person to spend time with. Plus, I LOVE roller coasters. LOVE them! We rode everything 2 or 3 times before we were "funned" out and we drove home. A perfect day!

We also finally made it to see "The Dark Knight." Of course, I loved it. It was masterfully done. Health Ledger did make one heck of a Joker, and I loved everyone else in the cast. Excellent movie, though definitely not what I would call uplifting. It was totally worth our drive down to Ithaca so we could see it in a real movie theater (the theaters closest to us are not stadium seating and have small screens ... ) Plus we were treated to one awesome lightning show on our way back from Ithaca. I wish I had my camera with me ... it was a sight to see!

We had one of the sets of sister missionaries serving in our ward over for dinner last night. Dinner was delicious, but my favorite part of the night was when we broke out the ice cream and had an ice cream feast for dessert. I counted and we have 8 open containers of ice cream! It was good we had some company to help us eat it. Everyone had a bit of all of the flavors and it was tasty!

And this has nothing to do with anything ... but we live in upstate, western New York ... and if I have to read about one more friend who came to New York to see all the Mormon church history sites and didn't stop to see me, I am going to cry. When we moved out here, we figured we would have tons of people come to visit us - I mean, we're in "the cradle of the restoration." We attend church every Sunday at the Peter Whitmer Farm, in Fayette, the very place where the LDS church was organized back in 1830. Palmyra is only a short drive away. We love having company (and I don't mean it as a cursory polite offer). Cory & I mooch off of other people all the time when we travel, by staying with people we know - and we would love to "pay it forward" and let people mooch off of us. So if you are planning on being in upstate New York, please come by and see me. I'll make you dinner and I won't even charge you for it :) Maybe I'll even throw in some ice cream.

Ooooh and did you fellow Twilight fans see this? http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20215228,00.html
AWESOME!!!! I'm totally on "team Edward" and I can't wait to see the fairy tale wedding come true! Plus I am also a hopeless romantic (like Stephenie) and so I know it's going to be awesome. I CAN'T WAIT!

Rock hard abs

Cory & I have found the best ab workout ever. It’s a TV show and it’s called Wipeout. For those of you who have watched the show, you know what I am talking about. For those that haven’t watched the show, well, you are missing out! It’s on at 8:00 p.m. (east coast time) on ABC on Tuesday nights. It’s hilarious. Seriously. I laugh so hard that my abs are sore and my mascara gets all streaky ‘cause I’m crying. If you don’t believe me, watch the show and you will see. It’s the commentary that makes it so hilarious (and yes, it’s John from ESPN). Well, the commentary and the big balls :) It’s my one hour of pure entertainment and it’s a really good stress buster. They say that laughter is one of the best things you can do for yourself – and this is laugh out loud, laugh ‘til you can hardly breath, funny. If you don’t believe me, watch some of these videos. I look forward to Tuesdays all week long and I’m sad when they are over. I wish I could watch Wipeout every night!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H82oVFBbuTg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrOhKr_MXY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29BnbRPy3Us

Unity Day

This weekend was Homecoming weekend for New York Chiropractic College. It affords people who have graduated the opportunity to come back and take various seminars and lectures, and get continuing education credits (sorry, no dance though :) Homecoming weekend kicked off Friday when the school hosts what's called "Unity Day." Basically it's just a big party with lots of activities, all held outside on the school grounds. Cory & I went over and had a great time (even if the weather was hot, hot, hot!) They have free food (which is the best kind of food, in my opinion), games, blow up toys, free goodies and a tug-of-war competition. The picture is of me & Aimee, eating our snow cones.

And a short video of the tug-of-war. They pit the different tri's against each other, making for excellent entertainment.



The rest of the weekend was not so fun, given that Cory had class all day Saturday and all day Sunday (and had papers, tests, presentations, etc in both classes). Gotta love this Nutrition program!! I can't believe we're nearing the end of the tri ... finals start in just 2 weeks! Does anyone else think this summer is going by waaaay too quickly?!?!

One good thing about summer going by so quickly - Breaking Dawn comes out in 11 days!! I CAN'T WAIT!! Is anyone else going insane waiting for August 2nd? Seriously, I think I am going to lose my mind with all the anticipation ... and I can't read anything else ... all I want is Breaking Dawn, so when I pick up another book, I find that I can't get into it. ACK! That's so not me. I can read anything and I love books ... but I find myself disinterested in everything, since all I want is Breaking Dawn! My insanity is getting to a point where it's bugging me :) I put a hold request on a good mystery at the library, so hopefully that can snag my attention ... at least for a few days!! And because I have watched it thousand times, I had to post the link for the movie trailer for Twilight ... and when I say "thousand", I mean it. This gets me even more excited for the movie!! I am hopelessly addicted to all things Twilight!!
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810010670/video/8858452

A really good story

Cory had no classes yesterday, due to the fact that registration for next tri was taking place. Given that a weekday off from school is very rare, we thought we would take advantage of it and do something fun. I took the day off from work and we planned to go to a Six Flags. The nearest Six Flags is between Rochester and Buffalo – about an 1 ½ hours of a drive. We packed our lunch so we wouldn’t have to spend tons of money while in the park, took a book (for me) and homework (for Cory) to read while standing in line and left our house. We were only 10 minutes away from the park when Cory noticed that the check engine light was on … and the temperature needle was buried. AGH! We exited the thruway and pulled into a gas station. By this point, smoke was pouring out from under the hood. We popped the hood and … drum roll, please … there was a big crack in the radiator. Antifreeze had spewed everywhere … all over the engine, the windshield, the passenger-side window. We called my dad (of course) and called our mechanic from home (home, in this case, being Farmington). Editing out some of the more boring details, we found a guy who specialized in radiators only 10 miles away from where we were. We filled the radiator with water … and it took us 45 minutes to go 10 miles. We had to stop twice to put more water in and let the engine cool down. We finally got to the shop and the guy put a brand new radiator in while we sat in his dingy waiting room and ate our sack lunch and read our book/homework. I was very glad we had thought to bring something to do, though we had no idea our radiator was going to explode. He got it fixed, we paid and we drove off, laughing at our situation. This always seems to happen to us whenever we are not close to home. We were 100 miles from home in a very unfamiliar place … last time something this catastrophic happened, we were in West Virginia and the muffler and all the piping just fell off the undercarriage of the car … and made the most awful dragging sound you can imagine. Plus, the muffler was no longer attached, so the car was sooo loud – it sounded like something right out of “Pimp my Ride.” My point is, things never seem to happen to our cars while we’re home … but when we are miles away, that’s when things go junk. Aaaah, don’t we have the best of luck? We managed to salvage our day by stopping in Rochester at an IMAX/3D movie theater. We saw Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. We even got our own 3D glasses that we got to keep. It was pretty cool seeing the movie in 3D. So all’s well that ends well … we were fortunate that nothing worse happened and that we could get everything fixed and arrive safely back home. Even though bad things always seem to happen to the car when we are miles from home, we always have been able to make the best of the situation … and for that, I am grateful. I wish I had pictures to post, but we didn’t have our camera with us, since we thought we were going to be spending the day in an amusement park and we didn’t want anything to happen to it. Oh well – use your imaginations :)

Beauty all around

You know, I was thinking ... we may not live near any form of civilization ... given that the nearest place to eat is 15 minutes away ... but we do live in a truly beautiful area. Scenes like these will be what I miss when we move from New York (in like a year, so nobody get worked up about it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy4ZL2grJT0&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofh7y_-qkqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Nf2dFwKLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8n9ZNmiwf0

The best weekend

I love the 4th of July. It's one of my favorite holidays - I love the time spent with family & friends, eating great food, playing in the sun, and celebrating America. It reminds me (again) how lucky we are to live in this great country!!

Cory and I spent the night of the 3rd having a pre-celebration. We went to my favorite sports bar (they have the best chicken wings ever!), sat on the grass of a huge park at listened to the Syracuse Symphony perform live, and watched a spectacular fireworks show right over Owasco Lake. We spent the 4th relaxing and playing with friends. We had an afternoon BBQ with our friends Jonathan & Jaime, and their adorable new daughter Brooke. We played badminton, ate waaaay too much food and generally enjoyed our day off from work/school.

This is Cory perfecting his badminton serve. I caught him at the perfect moment!








On Saturday, we went to a place called Sonnenberg Gardens. It's a 1887 Queen Anne-style mansion, complete with 50 acres of gorgeous grounds. It was owned by a rich guy named Thompson and his wife Anne. We went on a waking tour of the estate and got to hear all about the grounds and the family who lived there. It's now owned by the state of New York, but it was fun to imagine what it must have looked like 100 years ago! It was very pretty, so of course we took a bunch of pictures. I'll just post a few of my favorites.