More Salt Lake Adventures

Since El-ahrairah has had more time and energy with the conclusion of the semester, we decided to take a weekend to explore more of Salt Lake! I want to make sure we see whatever cool things the area has to offer before we move away.

Lights at Temple Square -- these paper bags made my linguist heart happy:

They didn't really have the ASL signs for joy, love, etc., the just used fingerspelling, which is okay I guess:

The nativity was amazing!

We were also able to do a live endowment session in the Salt Lake temple! ... To be honest, I didn't think that having it "live" was as cool as I imagined it. But I enjoyed moving from room to room and admiring the paintings and architecture, and afterwards we went to the south visitors' center and looked at the temple cross-section model to find the rooms we had been in! That's something I can cross off my bucket list now.

Afterward, we went to my friend's wedding reception (which wasn't as awkward as it could have been, considering I sort of almost dated the groom in question), and then went to see the Tree of Life in Draper:

I didn't get a great video of it, but I loved the way some of the lights flashed like my favorite kind of fireworks.

Overall it was a very Christmas-y weekend and I enjoyed it thoroughly. We had planned to go to the Midway Ice Castles, but I guess that doesn't open until January, so that's up next!

-Owlet

Dungeons and Dragons

Last week El-ahrairah and I had the chance to play Dungeons and Dragons! We'd never played it before so we weren't sure what we were in for. We pretty much expected something like this:

It was actually a lot of fun! It's basically playing pretend. I forgot how much I like role-playing, and it was great to just be around friends and have everyone get out of their comfort zone a little. I didn't realize that the game is really about working together as a team; it's not where you try to be the winner. That was really interesting and kind of refreshing. I can get pretty competitive when I play games, but it was cool to approach it in another way. We didn't end up finishing, so I'll let you know how it goes when we get the chance to play again!

-Owlet

My Favorite Name

My favorite name or title of Jesus Christ is "Wonderful," which pops up a lot in the scriptures. I love this line from Isaiah, especially as it's sung in Handel's Messiah. So I made this little graphic that kind of represents what I think of when I hear it sung:

I've been thinking about making graphics like these as printables for sale on Etsy, but Etsy is a little more complicated than I thought. Specifically the taxes part. If any of you are tax lawyers, let me know; I'd love to chat. :)

-Owlet

Our Story

A recent question asked El-ahrairah and Owlet "what's your story?" I asked El if I could answer it, and, well, I got a liiiiitle carried away. I'm not sure how much of this we'll actually post in our answer, but here's the full version (I was going to write it in third-person, but that ended up feeling awkward and inauthentic)(see also BQ#81792, BQ#81814, and BQ#81817) :

One of the first things that impressed me about El-ahrairah was his intelligence. He’s very humble, so this isn’t an impression I got so much from him as it was from those around him—his peers and teachers at our high school. I would often hear El-ahrairah got such-and-such a score on this test, El-ahrairah got an academic award, El-ahrairah is so smart, etc. One time during my senior year, my statistics teacher mentioned a student from the previous year who “never did the homework, but always aced the tests because he just figured out the answers logically.” (That’s paraphrased, but dang close.) That was, of course, El-ahrairah.

I didn’t know all this when I first met El, though. He was introduced to me at cross-country practice in the summer of 2009. He had moved to my hometown a year earlier, but our paths hadn’t crossed until I joined the cross-country team that summer. We started talking, particularly about one of our favorite things, books, and became friends—well, maybe more like good acquaintances, as I was a shy girl and kind of intimidated by athletic, smart “older” (by one year) guys. I used to eat lunch by myself to read a book, but sometimes El-ahrairah would come sit by me and ask about what I was reading.

When the formal girls’ choice dance was around the corner, my friends excitedly discussed who they would ask, and I thought I might possibly potentially maybe ask El … until the girl who spoke just before me said she was thinking of asking him! We had a good laugh about that and I said she should ask him because I wasn’t really sure I wanted to anyway. I went with another mutual friend, and El-ahrairah says that it was at that dance that he saw me in my beautiful dress and resolved to ask me out at the next chance he got.

Our first date was a double with some mutual friends; we saw El-ahrairah's sister perform in a ballet and then went to his house to play Wii sports resort, where El was planning to let me win but accidentally got totally creamed. It was simple, and fun. Per our own policies about not going on consecutive dates with the same person (you know, no significant others pre-mission and all that), we didn’t go on another date for a while, but then El-ahrairah asked me to prom!

It was again a simple affair; I bought my dress for $10 at D.I., we had dinner in a backyard, and we had an amazing time at the dance. (El-ahrairah would like to mention that the dinner was very fancy. *Correction: not “very fancy,” just “fancy.” Thanks, El.) A few weeks later, El-ahrairah moved down to BYU to start his freshman year, where he discovered the Board! So he’s been a reader since fall 2010 and, like most people I’m sure, mildly entertained the idea of someday applying.

At the end of his freshman year, El-ahrairah left on his mission, which was when I graduated from high school. While I did write to him consistently, I wasn’t “waiting” for him. I wrote to some other boys I liked, too, although inevitably I would slack off on writing the other guys. El-ahrairah turned out to be the only boy that I wrote to for the entire two years.

Sometime in 2012 I discovered the Board, either through googling a BYU-related question or through my roommate, we’re not sure which. I do remember that I somehow came upon the random question page before the home page, and I used to just reuse that one to find new questions. All the writers seemed to live in the same time-frame for me since I only read the archives, using the “I’m Board!” feature. I finally realized that there was actually a group of contemporary writers accepting volunteers, and I applied and became a writer in February 2013, a few months before El-ahrairah returned from his mission.

The semester before, I had an interesting choice to make. I heard about a linguistics study abroad and made plans to go, and then in October 2013 came the mission-age-change announcement. I was 19 at the time and torn between going on a mission as soon as possible, which had been my plan since I was 10, or continuing my study abroad plans. The obvious solution would be to do the study abroad first, then go on a mission, but in the back of my mind I knew there was more to it. I realized that if I didn’t go on a mission right then, El-ahrairah and I would be at BYU at the same time while I worked on my papers, and I had a suspicion that if we spent too much time together … my mission might not be happening.

After a lot of prayer, I decided to go on the study abroad. It was a blast, and Ardilla Feroz even saved me from a scorpion. When I returned, El-ahrairah was back from his mission. We went on some dates, while I wrote for the Board and he read it. He was more seriously contemplating the idea of applying, and then he found out that not only did I read the Board too, but I was a writer! That gave him the motivation to really try becoming a writer. Meanwhile, I still couldn’t decide if I liked El enough to forego my mission plans, so one fateful night I told him I was really committed to going on a mission and that we shouldn’t go steady.

He took it really well.

I didn’t.

I cut 17” off of my hair as a sign of a new beginning, I started my mission papers ... and I was miserable. Something wasn’t right.

So when we were both in our hometown for Christmas break, I sneakily held his hand during a New Year’s party, making El-ahrairah kind of confused, but also happy. During our year of dating, El-ahrairah was accepted to the Board. (Incidentally, I also got him a job at my workplace! It’s a good thing that things worked out between us or it would have been really awkward on the Board and at work.) We dated for one year and one month before getting engaged, to a chorus of “Finally!” from our high school friends. After a quick three-month engagement, we were married in our hometown. At some point during the craziness of wedding-planning, job-searching, and graduating, I left the Board. (I was going to have an awesome retirement answer, but that’s how life goes sometimes; maybe I’ll give it during Alumni Week.) El-ahrairah's still going strong as a writer and I go to Board parties with him from time to time.

We’ve been married for about half a year now, and it’s been great! Sometimes I wish that I had gone on a mission, but I think that marriage has taught me the things that I really needed to know now. I’ve learned that the promptings I’ve had throughout my life to prepare for a mission weren’t misread. That preparation has still been immensely valuable.

I feel like this story kind of went in a lot of different directions, but I think that’s the takeaway here. I love hearing about people’s true love stories because it shows you just how many different ways there are to end up with your sweetheart. Thanks, El-ahrairah, for taking this journey with me!

-Owlet

Kitty!

For Labor Day weekend a few months ago, we had the chance to go visit our families. IT WAS SO AWESOME GUYS. Not only were we able to attend my friend's wedding reception, but we also got to just hang out with our parents and El's siblings and just chill. Three day weekends are the best.

An important highlight was getting to meet Reeses, El's sister's new kitten! She's adorable. I'm not really an animal person (and I always feel like a bad person when I say that, but it is what it is), yet Reeses totally stole my heart. And, I'm afraid, El-ahrairah's. Those two were best buds the whole trip, evidenced in El-ahrairah not getting any homework done:

I hung out with El's family and my mom a lot while El-ahrairah was busy doing homework. Reeses helped.

She's just barely heavy enough to press down the keys on his keyboard.

Which at one point caused his computer to crash. Oops.

I hope El will love our future children as much as he loves this cat.

-Owlet

Christmas Thoughts on Contradictions

El-ahrairah was playing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" on our keyboard this morning. It made me think about how much confusion there might have been about where the Messiah was to be born: Micah 5:2 gives the prophecy of Christ being born in Bethlehem, while other prophecies referenced Him coming "out of Egypt" and another called Him a Nazarene.

So which is it? Knowing what we now know about the circumstances of Christ's birth and upbringing, it seems simple. (Spoiler alert: He was born in Bethlehem, moved to Egypt to escape Herod, then moved to Nazareth in Galilee.) But I can see how these seeming contradictions would have caused a great deal of confusion before the events actually transpired.

There are a lot of things about God and His gospel that I don't know, and in particular there seem to be so many contradictions that I struggle to understand. While I don't believe there are any reasons to quit looking for answers, there are numerous examples showing that sometimes, there are just things about God's plan we can't yet see. Which isn't always comforting, but it's kind of nice to realize that it's not like the confusing events of the past few weeks are unique to our day and age. People have dealt with limited mortal perspective before, and we'll do it more in the future too. I just try to keep in mind that Someone knows what He's doing.

-Owlet

FHE: Heavenly Mother

The topic: A few weeks ago, El-ahrairah chose to have a lesson about Heavenly Mother because of the new "Mother in Heaven" Gospel Topics Essay that the Church released recently.

Resources: Along with reading the Gospel Topics Essay, we looked at this article that was one of my readings for the Marriage Prep class I took at BYU: “A Mother There”: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven. I also referenced it in Board Question 79478. I highly recommend reading the entire article, but here's an overview:

In this paper, we will share important historical accounts that cast serious doubt on the specific claims that, first, a sacred silence has always surrounded this treasured Mormon doctrine and that, second, Heavenly Mother’s ascribed roles have been marginalized or trivialized. With respect to the second claim, we will share historical portrayals of Heavenly Mother as procreator and parent, as a divine person, as co-creator of worlds, as coframer of the plan of salvation with the Father, and as a concerned and loving parent involved in our mortal probation.

Also, during our discussion I was reminded of this quote from Elder Erastus Snow that we discussed in that same Marriage Prep class:

“What,” says one, “do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman?” Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself, and anything pertaining to the creation and organization of man upon the earth, I must believe that Deity consists of man and woman. ....

... I sometimes illustrate this matter by taking up a pair of shears, if I have one, but then you all know they are composed of two halves, but they are necessarily parts, one of another, and to perform their work for each other, as designed, they belong together, and neither one of them is fitted for the accomplishment of their works alone. And for this reason says St. Paul, 'the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord.' In other words, there can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, nor ever will be, a God in any other way. I have another description: There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female.

What we learned: Overall, it was just great to review what we know about Heavenly Mother and specifically her nature as a divine being. We talked about how that relates to the divine roles of women. And I thought about how all women are mothers—Eve was named "the mother of all living" before she even bore any children.

Challenge: Remembering the eternal nature and purpose of our lives and our marriage helps us to treat each other nicely. It puts our problems in perspective. If I want to complain about something or pick a fight, considering how my problem fits into the grand scheme of things helps me to approach El-ahrairah more charitably and reasonably.

FHE: Power of the Atonement

The topic: I've been reading a lot of stories about tragedy and loss lately, and while I appreciate that these stories help me empathize, it can really get me down. And crying gives me a headache. I chose to do the lesson on the Atonement to learn more about how Christ can heal those who have been through so much pain, and to be comforted by His love for our brothers and sisters.

Resources: 

Mormon Message Video - Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light

This video is about a man whose pregnant wife and two of their children were killed in a drunk-driving accident. This is my favorite part:

"For the first few months after the accident, I felt, I think it was just the initial shock that such a huge part of my life was now gone. And that's a very difficult thing to go through, to kneel down and desire to speak to my Father in Heaven when I'm so lonely or when I'm so anguished. It's an interesting conversation to have. He doesn't immediately try and make it better. He listens to me first. And I thought that was very helpful. He allowed me to get that anger off my chest. But inevitably He would always come back and teach me about His son, Jesus Christ.When I did feel anger, or there was just a deep sense of loneliness, I didn't direct that at the person that had caused this. It directed itself at the Savior."

Isaiah 53:3-5:

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

I also just noticed that the General Conference talk Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ is on the homepage of lds.org. In this talk, Elder Oaks speaks of  the burdens of mortality and how Christ can succor those who suffer. It's awesome.

What We Learned: Whew. A lot. I was particularly impressed with the reminder that anger, sorrow, and all other emotions can actually be swallowed up in Christ. As the man in the video spoke of giving his anger to the Savior, I thought of the experience of punching a pillow when you're mad. You don't punch the person you're mad at, you don't punch a wall—those things just hurt more. You find something that can take it, something soft that can absorb all that force. And, if you direct the insurmountable fear, frustration, and grief at Jesus Christ, he can take it all. His Atonement can handle it. It can handle anything! I don't feel that I can express here how much that means to me right now. I couldn't express it during the lesson either—I ended up crying again and just kind of hoped El-ahrairah knew what I meant. (He did.)

Honestly, the intensity of my emotions while discussing this totally floored me. There are a lot of difficult things going on in the Church and in the world quite recently; like many people, I have questions and concerns to work out and haven't been feeling so good about things lately. But having this opportunity to examine and share my understanding of the love and Atonement of Jesus Christ was surprisingly powerful, and I'm grateful for that experience.

Challenge: This is the challenge every day of mortality, to remember Christ and His ability to strengthen us. Remembering that He is at the heart of everything we believe and hope for.

This is a painting of Jesus Christ with a girl, Baylee, who passed away on Sunday. (Source)

Date: Temple Night

A few months ago, we decided that our ideal goal for temple attendance would be once every two weeks. We certainly haven't made that goal every time, but I'm pretty content that our frequency since then hasn't dropped below once a month. Some weeks ago, Owlet asked if I wanted to go to the temple the next day. Of course I wanted to, but I felt that I was too busy with homework to go, so I said I'd rather go another time. But the next day I was a little overwhelmed with one of my labs, and managed to waste pretty much the entire day as a result. I realized that what I really needed wasn't time, but the perspective and discipline to focus. Without that, I might find it increasingly difficult to get anything done. In other words, I didn't have time not to go to the temple.

So after work we drove the half-mile to the Provo temple, and Owlet enjoyed her first taste of chicken-fried steak in the temple cafeteria. And the endowment session was very nice. I remember almost falling asleep only once, learning something deep that I've forgotten by now, and having a sweet experience together with Owlet. 

So, was it worth it? Spiritually and emotionally, I definitely think so. Temporally, the following week I was able to focus on my labs and projects much better than I had since the beginning of the semester. I'm sure I saved at least twice as much time as I invested. I hadn't really connected my new-found efficiency to my temple attendance until now, but I bet there's a connection. Yay temples! Thanks for the great date, sweetheart!

-El-ahrairah

The Danger of Having Two Google Chat Windows Open

... is that you might get your TA confused with your wife!

-Owlet (thanks to El-ahrairah for sharing your embarrassing moment with us)

Pickled Husbands

I've recently acquired a taste for pickles. Although I don't necessarily choose to eat them plain yet, I do enjoy them on sandwiches, burgers, and hot dogs. That's a big change from my childhood, when I hated even the smallest bits of pickle in my food. Besides eating a delicious Cuban pork and pickle sandwich yesterday,

Courtesy Zupa's deliciousness and Owlet's great taste in restaurants

I was recently reminded of pickles by the scripture I've been pondering this week, D&C 42:22:

Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else.

I've claimed to love my wife with all my heart before, but I realized that's not quite true. I want to love my wife with all my heart. I definitely love her with a lot of my heart. But whenever I let myself be distracted when Owlet's talking to me, or procrastinate homework that would help me eventually support our family, or do anything that doesn't put her first (that is, right after the Savior), I'm not loving her with all my heart.

Luckily, I think I'm still a pretty good husband. And loving Owlet with all my heart is definitely my goal, albeit one that will probably take me a long time to reach. So how do I convert my heart to be Owlet's? This is where the pickles come in. In 2007, Elder Bednar gave an excellent talk titled "Ye Must Be Born Again," wherein he taught us the Parable of the Pickle. His goal was to describe our conversion into followers of Christ, but I think becoming a better husband to my wife is an essential part of that process.

The process of pickling both cucumbers and husbands involves three steps: preparing and cleaning, immersing and saturating, and purifying and sealing. I'm done with the first step—I prepared spiritually and otherwise to marry my wife for all time in the temple, although I certainly need to stay clean and re-clean. As for saturating, Elder Bednar said:

The spiritual rebirth described in this verse typically does not occur quickly or all at once; it is an ongoing process—not a single event. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God [and in harmony with Owlet]. This phase of the transformation process requires time, persistence, and patience.... 

Sporadic and shallow dipping ... cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables us to walk in a newness of life [or a newness of wife]. Rather, fidelity to covenants, constancy of commitment, and offering our whole soul unto God [and whole heart to Owlet] are required if we are to receive the blessings of eternity.

It's not easy to immerse myself in the service and love of my wife and family so constantly. Actually, it's not easy for me to do anything so constantly. Except maybe eat. But as I try, I'll get better at it, and become more converted to loving my wife. God will purge me of my selfish and weak impurities, purify me, and seal me to live with my wife in our eternal pickle jar forever.

-El-ahrairah

Harry Potter Party

For Halloween(ish), we threw a Harry Potter Party!

-Owlet

FHE: Inclusion

The topic: Last week for Family Home Evening, El based his lesson on this article which discusses the principle of inclusion in the Church.

Resources: We read the entire article together, but here are some of my favorite parts:

...as an entry point to my topic I want to describe a negative experience I had in the missionary training center. We had fairly regular meetings with general authorities of the church, and it was typical in those meetings for a choir to perform a song or two. My boys can tell you that I like to sing, but they can also probably tell you that I’m not especially good at it. Certainly I have no training, nor can I read music. But I decided to join the choir one week with my companion (who actually was a good singer). Early in the first practice, the choir leader said something about how baritones should sing this part, and basses should sing that part. I leaned over to my companion who was seated next to me and said “What should I do? I’m not sure if I’m a baritone or a bass.” At this point a missionary seated in front of me turned around with a scornful look on his face and said “If you don’t know that, then what are you doing here?” 

I’m sure you can imagine how I felt. But I’m not telling you the story so you can feel sorry for me and my hurt feelings. And in fairness, the missionary had a point. But I want you to think about the message he was delivering: You do not belong here.

If we want to be more empathetic toward people who struggle with faith, or more forgiving of ourselves when our own faith falters, a good place to start is to recognize that the Lord appears to have intended for us to struggle. In church culture we like to use the language of certainty: we are taught to say that we know the church is true, and we like words like “perfect” and “firm” and “unshakeable.” But, in my opinion, an honest assessment of our relationship with God must admit that it involves a great deal of mystery and uncertainty and confusion. We’re told that if we’re unsure, we can just ask Him in prayer to tell us it’s true. But for many of us the answers to such prayers don’t come easily; inspirations, if and when they finally come, may be “dimly perceived” and difficult to interpret. I recently read a commentator who suggested we understand this not as evidence of God’s indifference, but as a way in which God poses the important question: “What will you do now?” 

...we should want everyone to be here, and we should want everyone to feel welcome here. Did Christ associate only with the faithful? He ministered to believers and unbelievers, to the sinful and to the repentant. You may say “Well – he was the Son of God, so his testimony was too strong to be shaken by anyone’s unbelief.” But I suggest an alternative: he was the Son of God, so his love was too strong to be shaken by anyone’s unbelief. 

Another threat to our sense of belonging is a perception that we’re not as righteous or as spiritual as everyone else. Ours is a church with many programs and prescriptions, many dos and many don’ts. It’s hard to keep up with all the things we’re supposed to be doing, and easy to feel like we’re not measuring up – especially if it seems like everyone else in the ward is doing everything right.

El-ahrairah also shared 3 Nephi 12:1-2:

 1 And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words unto Nephi, and to those who had been called, (now the number of them who had been called, and received power and authority to baptize, was twelve) and behold, he stretched forth his hand unto the multitude, and cried unto them, saying: Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen from among you to minister unto you, and to be your servants; and unto them I have given power that they may baptize you with water; and after that ye are baptized with water, behold, I will baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost; therefore blessed are ye if ye shall believe in me and be baptized, after that ye have seen me and know that I am.
 2 And again, more blessed are they who shall believe in your words because that ye shall testify that ye have seen me, and that ye know that I am. Yea, blessed are they who shall believe in your words, and come down into the depths of humility and be baptized, for they shall be visited with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and shall receive a remission of their sins.

What we learned: I learned that I have a lot of pride and don't like being told that I'm doing something wrong unless I recognize it myself first. The talk was strongly worded, and a good reminder for me to consider many perspectives. I especially liked how the speaker discussed empathy; that's a life skill that I would consider in, like, the top five of all life skills for being a good person. I think it's valuable to consider all the many paths one can take to arrive at a conclusion, and then realize that you can't really know which of the infinite paths a person took, so all you can do is validate and empathize.

This is what El said: "One of the things I liked about the talk was that it encouraged us to recognize that the gospel doesn't come easily to everyone and sometimes it's not as instantly believe-able as we'd like to have people think. For those for whom it easy, great, but Jesus said blessed are they that believe in your words. So we're blessed if we believe without as much witness as other people have."

Challenge: One thing we want to work on is making sure we're being reasonably candid about the struggles we face with the purpose of helping others feel they can relate to and belong with us. (For example, bragging less about good things and being honest about things we don't understand.)

Photoshop & Scriptures

I've been spending a lot of time with Photoshop trying to practice design and stuff. What better way to practice than to use my weekly scriptures (my ponderize verses, if you will)? I've also been practicing with some of my favorite quotes and phrases.

-Owlet

Adventures of Grocery Shopping

When El-ahrairah hasn't had ice cream for a while, he gets a little crazy. We go to LoLo's grocery store for the student discount on Thursdays, and a few weeks ago El really needed some ice cream. (Really. Needed.) We picked up a tub of Sprinkled Animal Cookie flavor. Like this:

Source: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55819710e4b0f153d10a6de0/55898abce4b0bafb124d6037/55899695e4b09503829b3c7d/1437690295862/?format=300w

Oh, and we got some healthy food too! :D

Farm-fresh produce!

I don't know if farmer's market food is healthier for you, I have no idea if supporting local businesses is good for the economy, but visiting the farmer's market is sure fun (and the samples are dang good too! I love the salsa one). I love the autumn-y feel of the vendors' booths, seeing all the newly harvested goods and the homemade wares for sale. It's definitely a symbol of the season.

-Owlet

Sick

No, not the good kind of sick.

El-ahrairah was feeling a little under the weather earlier this month. He had the sniffles, mostly, so it was your basic common cold. When I found out, I made sure to make him as comfortable as possible and help out where I could—and then my next thought was I really, really don't want to get sick. Let's see, I'll just wash my hands often, and not touch my face, and we'll wipe down all the doorknobs and clean all the things ...

And then I remembered that he and I make out on a regular basis.

Dang it.

-Owlet

Date: Exploring Center Street

If you have't noticed, exploring is the of El's and my favorite things! I was having a bad day one Thursday, so El-ahraiah said "Hey, wanna check out that cool-looking bookstore downtown?" He was talking about Pioneer Book! I'm so glad that I have a husband that so often knows exactly what I need. So I, being me, excitedly agreed and we spent the rest of the evening walking down Center Street in Provo.

Center Street is a pretty happening place. For one thing, that's where the Tempernacle is being built (temple + tabernacle; we're trying to make that one catch on). And there's a bunch of random art too.

Finally we ended up at Demae, a Japanese restaurant. Apparently, Tuesday and Thursday nights are their "Sushi Special" nights when they offer discounts on sushi. So we got a tempura shrimp + spicy mayo roll and a roll with salmon, cucumber, and crab. Yummy!

We liked the tempura shrimp roll the best. Only $3.95 or something like that.

All in all, it was a great way to spend our third month-aversary! Here's to many much more exploring in the months and years to come.

-Owlet

Special Plate!

I found about the special plate tradition when my former roommate received a special plate at her bridal shower. The idea is that you have a special plate (obvious, I know) that you bring out when a family member is having a special day, or when you have a special guest visiting. For example, it could be used for a child's birthday dinner, or for the last day of finals, or when your sister visits for a sleepover. I don't know, lots of things I'm sure. Anyway, the "traditional" special plate sold at stores like Target and Kohl's or wherever is red and says "You are Special Today."

Image source: http://www.redplatestore.com/you-are-special-today-red-plate.aspx?gclid=CjwKEAjw3uWuBRD_s-3a8-_h6j0SJAC-qgtHH3jRsdv6-K6D9bXl_LqEh0hlZ6LnQBK6FP6yiYicIBoChLbw_wcB

Which is kind of cute except I'm not a huge fan of the color red nor of the saying "You are Special Today" -- I'm not sure why. (Plus, these babies run for about $30 each. Ouch.)

However, I super love the idea of celebrating the little things in cute but simple ways, so of course when El-ahrairah and I stopped at a ceramics-painting shop on our honeymoon, I knew we needed to make a "special plate" of our own. Something that would be unique for our family, so it could be a tradition all our own.

So we set about designing and painting our very own special plate. We got the plate from the "discount" basket (I guess there were some kind of abnormalities about it; we couldn't tell, though), so it was only like $10.

It took us forever to decide on a design, and quite a while to paint it, but it was totally worth it. We decided to go with the quote "You are the special" from one of our favorite movies, The Lego Movie. Mostly because we couldn't think of anything I liked better.

The finished product is super cute and matches the colors of our kitchen decor (red definitely wouldn't have). I'm super excited to pull it out for our future children and celebrate the successes in their lives! No picture because it has our last name on it :/

Oh, and I got to use the special plate the other day! El-ahrairah was setting the table and put the plate out for me because I drove stick shift on some real roads with real other cars on the road! I thought it was kind of a little thing to go through the trouble of using the special plate, but I was excited to try it out and be all special and stuff.

Come to find out, the only reason he brought out the special plate was because all our other plates were dirty. Geez, El. Special plates are supposed to be special.

We're going to work on that. (El-ahrairah insists that we used it because I AM SPECIAL. To which I say ... everyone is special, dear, but having all our dishes dirty does not exactly make that day special. Ha.)

-Owlet

Date: Green Panda Cafe, x2

A few weeks ago we went to Green Panda Cafe for our date night. Here's El-ahrairah's description: "We split a beef noodle soup, wontons, and a mango lychee boba smoothie. For probably everyone reading this, boba are little tapioca balls they put in the bottom of your smoothie. Then they give you a really wide straw and you can chew them (or blow them at each other). I think they're fun, but [Owlet] thought they were weird."

I never seem to remember to take pictures of our awesome meals until we're already halfway through them. I kind of think that's the way life is supposed to be, anyway. I guess you can trust that these dishes are really delicious since we couldn't even spare a few moments before digging in!

Yeah, I did think they were weird, but hooray for cultural experience! We actually went there again for another date a week or two later.

Again, El's description: "We went on a lunch date to Green Panda and got yummy beef noodles; a combo plate with Mongolian chicken, two wontons, and a spring roll; and a coconut peach boba smoothie." Yep, that pretty much sums it up! Soooo good.

I really wanted to go back and get more of a taste for those boba things. I think it's definitely an acquired thing. I didn't hate them as much this time! I loved all the food we had at Green Panda. I really don't know what is my favorite except maybe the the potstickers (which El calls wontons [which I don't understand]) because they remind me of my childhood. But seriously everything we have had there has been so flavorful and hot and amazing and authentic, too. I think we'll be frequent eaters there this year!

-Owlet

Visit from Mom- and Dad-ahrairah! And sibs! And friends!

Last week we were honored to host El's parents and littlest sister in our home! They came to drop of El's younger brother and other younger sister at BYU for the school year. We also went and had a picnic at Bridal Veil falls!

On Thursday we went to the Food Truck Roundup! I was so excited -- this has been on my bucket list for a while. Basically, a bunch of food trucks offering various cuisines all gather at a certain spot in Provo every Thursday evening. I'm a fan of trying new and interesting foods, especially ones from other cultures, so I was all over this.

I thought there would be like 5-6 trucks there, but there were more like 10-15! We definitely spent way more time trying to choose which food to get than we did eating the food. I knew I didn't want any of the "American"-styled food, like the Mad Mac macaroni & cheese truck or the Mouse Trap grilled cheese truck or the Corn Dog Commander; I was torn between the European pitas and the tacos/tamales.

So. Many. Trucks. Kind of hard to see here, but yeah.

We ended up splitting a pork tamale and a couple beef (asada) tacos from Tacos Nayarit, with some Japanese sweet pork buns from Genki to finish it off. The tacos were my favorite -- highly recommended.

Not pictured: sweet pork buns. They were delicious! And yeah, everything was overpriced. We don't do this every week, you know. Great cultural experience, though!

On Saturday we met my good friend from high school and her boyfriend in a park in Orem. They came down to Utah to buy a puppy!

Puppy! He's a 10-week old Saint Bernard, currently nameless. As you can see below, he refused to look at me whenever I was trying to take a picture.

On Sunday we had El's BYU-siblings (my brother- and sister-in-law, I guess! and also my brother-in-law's girlfriend) over for dinner. El-ahrairah made Honey Sriracha Chicken, and I made some apple crisp.

Honey Sriracha Chicken! Spicy, sweet, amazing. The apple crisp I made took way too long. The recipe is here, if you want it, and it was delicious, but I'm going to look for something simpler next time.

Looking forward to more family dinners/visits in the future!

-Owlet