Hello all! This is Kevin’s maiden voyage of posting. After some gentle spousal prodding I have decided to join blogapalooza and let the world know what I am doing and what I think. Of course, I have been heavily engaged in the latter all my life, but with the pragmatic limitations associated with the height of my current soap box and an inability to have my voice carry to all those who might be benefited, I am grateful to enlist this medium and exploit the malleable minds of those willing to read on. Just kidding. I’m really not arrogant and this really isn’t going to get preachy, I just needed a catchy introduction.
Although admittedly late, recently Leslie and I have discovered a delightful world where one can find beauty all around you, where dreams do not die, but live on in one’s heart, where a burned out law student can find solace and simplicity in a world of uncertainty. No, I’m not talking about a Barack Obama rally; rather, I speak of Guitar Hero.
Guitar Hero provides one the opportunity to live out frustrated 80’s related fantasies, to stand in one’s living room and revel in the glory of stardom and to have a mechanical voice tell you once and for all that “You Rock!” Guitar Hero is like a prepackaged drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll kit (just add drugs and sex).
Leslie and I recently discovered this proverbial golden goose after a visit to Leslie’s home for Christmas. Her older brother Mark had already recognized the benefit that a substantial and dedicated commitment to Guitar Hero could yield. We spent Christmas time learning at the feet of the master and shortly after returning home we acquired this game for ourselves. Since that time we have spent many an evening with the windows firmly shut and the blinds tightly drawn as we hone our nerdy and somewhat shameful craft.
Not to toot my own horn (toot, toot), but I have seen a return on my investment. I’m getting better every day. Of course, my new skill presents a conundrum I hadn’t expected to encounter—do I drop out of law school, dedicate myself to this full time and pursue it as a career, or do I let the man keep me down? For the moment, at least, I have decided to let the man keep me down (the man has actually been pretty good to me lately). In the meantime we wish you all success in whatever you may be doing. However, bear in mind that whatever success you enjoy in life, rarely will someone tell you earnestly and unequivocally, that “You Rock!”

Intellectual Pursuits

Kevin and I graduated from BYU in April 2006...3 months later Kevin started law school and I started working. I work in an office where the most intellectual conversation I have ever had consisted of discussing the previous night's Office episode and comparing it to our own office existence (ps I love The Office)...probably the second most intelligent conversation was discussing the proper way to make tea (my boss is a big tea drinker!)...you get the picture! My job is simply not intellectually stimulating - and how can it be? I am an executive assistant...all I need to know is how to unjam the copier and teach my boss how to attach a document to an email!

In college, I always felt intellectually stimulated...I learned new things everyday, worked hard, read constantly and it made me feel good about myself. I was not wasting the brain that God gave me...until I graduated and all learning stopped. I blame myself - I let it happen, but I have vowed to get back on the right track and to continue what should be everyone's goal - to be a lifelong learner. I want to keep sharp, expand my vocabulary, and to always be finishing a book.

To jump start my return to academia and to my humanities/history major roots, I have decided to read/reread the complete works of Jane Austen. Kevin was kind enough to buy me a compilation of her 6 novels for Easter (thanks babe!) and while I have read Pride and Prejudice and Emma before, I am reading and studying all of her works in order as she wrote them, starting with Sense and Sensibility.

I am almost through reading about the Miss Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility, and I plan on updating everyone on my conquest of all 6 novels. I have never been a fast reader, so please don't hold your breath for me to finish!

Wish me luck!

A Little Local Siteseeing

Hello my blogger buddies! Just checking in here for my sunday post. This has been a very busy week it seems! Between end of the school year parties, softball practice, a baby shower, hanging out with friends, the beach, batting cages, and Busch Gardens, we've been on the go this week! And of course, I don 't have pictures of any of it! I even purposely brought my camera to Busch Gardens to take pictures to post (just for you, Mike!) but then left the camera in the car...classic! I should have my camera with me wherever I go but I always either leave it behind or forget to take pictures if I do bring it. If it were still January I could say that this years New Years resolution is to take more pictures...but it is already April - can you believe it? Time flies so fast sometimes! I guess Kevin and I are just having too much fun! We really are, in all actuality. We love our little apartment in Williamsburg, the beautiful surroundings, the friends we have made, and this time in our lives. We are having a blast and are so happy that we chose to move away from our families (even though we love and miss them dearly!) to establish ourselves as a couple so that we can be strong together and learn to rely on each other.

Okay, so as this post title suggests, we have been doing some siteseeing as of late - mostly because we have had visitors and isn't it the truth that you never take the time to see the local sites unless you have family or friends in town? Well, a few weeks ago Kevin's parents were in town and we took a day and went down to Norfolk and had a ton of fun visiting the Nauticus Museum (a hands on marine science museum...very fun even for adults!), touring the USS Wisconsin, taking an afternoon naval base cruise, and finishing the day off with some seafood for dinner! I would highly receommend any of the activities for adults and children...except the seafood part - eating crab is WAY too much work for adults, let alone children!!

The USS Wisconsin is connected to the Nauticus Museum (a two-for!) so as we were walking into the museum, we had to take a few pictures beside the bohemoth!

My little sailor boy!

They have some really big guns on board!

Kevin and I got into a replica of the tight bunks that the sailors slept in...it was a challenge for me to get in (looks roomier than it is!) and you should have seen Kevin crawling in! They did NOT have a lot of room!

Me sitting on the boat of the naval cruise...the wind was really blowing that day and my hood was not helping out much!

A cool aircraft carrier...by the way, did you know that they house a crew of 6,000 at sea? I mean, talk about a city on the water!

After the naval cruise we walked down to a nearby shopping center and ate at Joe's Crabshack...and what did Kevin order? A whole BUCKET of crab (thanks Artis and Lionel for financing his addiction to seafood)! So, at Joes's when you order crab, the waitors come over and tie a bib on you before you get your order so we had to take a picture of Kevin in his bib!

Well, that's enough for today...check back soon (and by soon, I mean a few days at least!) for another post!

St. Patrick's Day...a little late!

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone! Yes, I realize that the day of green was almost a month ago, but I have just not had the chance to post the pictures from this year's St. Patrick's Day party. We had so much fun this year! I made my signature corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes and our guets brought everything else (thank you!). Kevin's parents were there for the event and were so helpful in cooking, cleaning, and crowd control...it was a lot of fun to have friends and family together in our one bedroom apartment! I just love St. Patrick's day because you get to eat yummy food, dress in green, and be with friends - what's not to love?

Unfortunately, I was having so much fun hosting the party that I kept forgetting to take pictures, so we only have a few! Here they are:

Say hi to Kendra, Brett, Eric, and Danny!

Allow me to introduce my father-in-law, Lionel, and Kevin's buddy Dave.

Elizabeth, Brandon and Vanessa :)

Our new friends, Nora and Adam.

Halle and her daddy, Jason.

Halle and her mommy, Vanessa.

Make sure you all clear your calendars for next year's party - March 17th, 2009!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! I am so glad this week is over and I don't even know why! Nothing bad happened (except for Kevin leaving me for a moot court competition in NY...I am so jealous!) and the days were all busy and went by quickly...I don't even know why! Sometimes I just crave sleeping in on a saturday, waking up naturally and then lying in bed reading a magazine or a good book (by the way, for Easter Kevin bought me the complete works of Jane Austen and I am currently reading Sense and Sensibility...love it!)...and work and life just gets in the way, darn it! Even now I am thinking about the bed that I left just hours ago (no dirty thoughts!) and thinking about sleeping in tomorrow morning and reading until I feel like getting dressed!

Tangent alert!! - Ever since I started my blog I have wondered how many people actually visit the site, so I took a hint from Elizabeth's blog and installed SiteMeter (for free...I LOVE free things!) and checking it today and saw that people actually visit my site! CRAZY!! I love you all and appreciate you checking up on Kevin and I and caring about us - seriously, if you know about my blog it means that we are close and I love you all! I guess I need to apologize to all of you for not updating anything for a while there - Kevin's family was in town for 2 weeks and we were having too much fun to blog! I promise, Karen, that I will blog more faithfully for no other reason than for you to have somthing interesting to read while you are at work!

Again, thanks for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!

Our New Love - Guitar Hero!!!

When Kevin and I were home for Christmas, we were introduced to Guitar Hero, but little did we know that just months later we would be the proud owners of our newest favoritist game in the whole wide world!!! Seriously, Kevin and I are the lamest people in the world - we stand in our living room holding plastic guitars that we decorated with the cool rocker stickers that came with the game and play songs by pushing 5 colored buttons while notes stream forward on the TV screen...and we love it! I feel super lame, but at the same time it is so much fun! I have never really been into video games before (mostly because I am super incompetent when it comes to those stinkin controlers!) but can actually play guitar hero and have fun (unlike playing first person shooter games where Kevin just kills me over and over again!).

Part of the game is forming a band and performing without getting booed off the stage and right now Kevin and I are playing on Hard and Medium respectively. Yes, I have actually spent enough time playing to advance from easy to medium (and yes, Kevin has actually spent enough time to advance to hard!). Hopefully Kevin's grades don't suffer because he is seriously getting good at this game!

Kevin's rockin' out!

See how cool my guitar is!

Just in case you've never seen what it looks like :)

This is an invitation for all of you to come over and play with us and feel like a real rocker! I promise you'll love it and after a couple of songs you'll get the hang of it!

A Weekend Trip to Raleigh, North Carolina

Living in Williamsburg, Virginia has a lot of perks - but its "proximity" to a temple is NOT one of them. Kevin and I have both been spoiled by growing up in states with temples within close driving distance, so moving to Virginia has been somewhat trying in terms of how close we are to the temple. Sure, Washington, D.C. looks to be pretty close to Williamsburg on the map...but try driving it, going to the temple, and then driving back - it is a MISERABLE experience! For some reason, Virginia hasn't realized that the I-95 is a highly travelled road and might warrant more than, say, two or three lanes! Virginia has awful roads...but that is a rant for another post.

Kevin and I knew that it was about time we get our hinies to the temple, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to battling traffic for 3 hours each way...so we decided to make a fun weekend out of going to the temple and decided that we would rather drive 3.5 leasurely hours to the Raleigh temple than the 3 hours of white nuckle driving to the Washington DC temple.

Kevin planned the entire trip by himself and had a couple of surprises along the way. We drove down Saturday morning and stopped for lunch at Panda Express - conveniently located just a mile from the temple! As a side note, Kevin and I just love Panda Express, but the closest one to us is about an hour way, so whenever we go home to Utah or California we engorge ourselves in Panda just to quench our thirst for orange chicken!

The Raleigh temple is one of the smaller, cuter ones and it was a beautiful day, so we snapped some pictures for all of you to enjoy!







After the temple, we checked into our hotel room and took a much needed nap (doesn't it always seem like you need a nap after?). We took a wonderful nap and then got ready for dinner - Kevin had made reservations at Sullivan's Steakhouse and so we drove into the downtown part of Raleigh and ate dinner at a very delicious (very expensive!) restaurant - they had VERY good food!

The next morning we slept in and then drove home, but we stopped for lunch at the most amazing place - Logan's Roadhouse. If you have ever been there you would know why they are so amazing. The food is mediocre at best, but the serve fresh and hot buttery rolls that are to DIE for - if you ever see one, stop and enjoy a hot roll!

Anyway, I am just so glad we could get away for the weekend. With my work, we couldn't take a vacation for spring break, so I am glad we could get out of town - if even for a night!