Capitol Reef Part One

This last weekend we took a trip down to Southern Utah for some good ol' camping. I will now proceed to tell you all about it. Also, this post is going to have a lot of pictures so sit tight. I will preface this post by explaining that I am not a camper. Never have been, not sure if I truly ever will be. We never camped in my family when I was growing up. Our idea of "camping" was a hotel room. Which I never had any complaints about, I mean camping in essence is pretty much depriving yourself of the luxuries of life (i.e. showering, toilets, running water, a bed, etc.). So I might keep using phrases like "surprisingly" or "actually not that bad" in relation to this weekend's events; do not mistake this for hesitancy in spending time with the Fisher clan. It has 100% to do with the fact that I actually enjoyed myself while camping. 

Also, here is a list of all of the people who went on this trip. I realize that some of you reading this might not recognize the names and I'm all about clearing up the connections: 

Anjai- Ky's oldest sister
Will- Anjai's boyfriend 
Devin- Ky's brother (he has previously appeared in my posts)
Shann- Ky's sister
Chad- Shann's husband
Teagan- Shann and Chad's daughter, my niece 

Friday night I got off of work and we quickly went to go pick up Devin and Will. After the men folk loaded the car we set off on our way to Capitol Reef to meet up with the rest of the gang. Mind you, this was a 3 hour car ride and I strongly dislike long car rides. Strongly dislike. Yet Ky loves to do this awesome thing I like to call "point out every geological feature on the way to wherever we're going" which worries me to no end; because, what does he do when he plays this game? Gets his eyes off of the road and points at something while asking Devin how he thinks that rock formation got to be there/look like that/what kind of rock it is, etc. I digress. 

After the arduous car ride we made it! Sort of, and this folks is where it gets interesting. I had the understanding that we were going to go straight to the camp site at Capitol Reef national park. Which was the original plan, except that Anjai and crew couldn't secure a camp site so they got stuck at a make shift camp site off the road a little ways. Guess who knew all about this all along? Ky. Guess who intentionally withheld this information from me because he thought I'd be in a sour mood*? Ky. His reasoning was; I was going to be annoyed about this situation one way or the other so he had 2 options: 1. tell me when I got home from work and allow me to be miserable for 3 hours in the car or 2. tell me when we get there and give me no time to process it, therefore hopefully skipping the freak out step. In theory this should've worked, except that he failed to see option 3: I would get mad at him for withholding crucial information so that he wouldn't have to deal with me freaking out. Nevertheless, I hate to admit that his plan sort of worked. By the time we reached the "site" we were staying at, I was too tired and cold to do anything about it so we set up camp and went to sleep. By morning I was perfectly chipper in knowing that Shann and Chad had gotten up early and secured us a camp site. 

(* the sour mood revolves around the fact that I was promised there would be a flushable toilet. We were literally camped on the side of the road, meaning no toilet at all. You can imagine my distress after having sat in a car for 3 hours.)

Now, if you'll proceed to "part two" we'll get to the good stuff. 

Patience

Lately I have had no patience with life. I believe that every moment we live must be cherished, just as much as the next person. But that can be easier said than done. Being in a married student ward is a unique experience. At least one spouse out of every couple that attends our ward is a student, and we all live in the same apartments. It takes me 2 minutes to walk to any given apartment here and my visiting teaching route is a piece of cake. I consider it to be an immense blessing to have the opportunity of attending such a fine educational institution as Brigham Young University. You might be thinking at this point, "so what's the complaint?". Well, given everything I've said; I'm very anxious to reach the pinnacle of success in one's life. Or at least what I consider success to be. A family. A house. A minivan. A steady income. A dishwasher. 

When I was a kid I would tell people I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. Why? Well teachers are cool and all, but my motivation behind it was this: manageable schedule that allowed me to be home before my kids came home. Yup, 7 year old me knew she wanted to be a mother more than anything. Fast forward a few years and I've realized I don't necessarily have to have a career. In fact my dream job is to be a stay-at-home mom; working 14+ hour days chasing around rug rats that don't want to listen or eat their vegetables. At least if they're anything like Ky, vegetables will be a challenge. I digress. The point is that when you are in a ward with people your age, attending the same university, in the same life situation as you, and some of them have babies, well... it's impossible not to get baby fever. Unfortunately for us; right now just isn't the right time. Maybe if I had more school under my belt. Maybe if mine and Ky's schedules weren't so off and one of us could always be home with said child. All I know is that it won't be happening right now. 

That's the real kicker. For those of you that know me very well, patience is not a word that I know the definition of. My husband can attest to that. The poor guy had to hear "are you proposing yet?" for 2 straight months before he popped that question. Therefore this whole "I want to have a baby but can't right now" thing is killing me. So, what do I do in times of deep frustration? Read my scriptures and study talks given on patience. I stumbled across a gem that I want to share with you. It was from Neal A. Maxwell's '79 address to BYU students (http://www.lds.org/ensign/1980/10/patience?lang=eng I highly suggest reading it). One of my favorite quotes from it is:

"Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than his. Either way we are questioning the reality of God’s omniscience..." 

Ouch. That was tough to read because of the implications. By being impatient and not enjoying the stage of life I'm in, including not being grateful for the many blessings I have received, I believe that I know what's better than Heavenly Father does. WRONG! Not in any situation is that correct. It definitely won't be easy to learn how to exercise patience. In fact, it will most likely be one of the most difficult things I learn to do in my life. But it is so necessary for our eternal progression. In closing, I'm going to let King Benjamin share his thoughts on the matter:

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Mosiah 3:19 (emphasis added) 

Amen. 

Spring break: Day 6 and Goodbye

Yes, I can count and I noticed that it has been 20 days since my last post. I think it's been fairly well explained that I'm not great at being up to date on my blogging. Regardless I wanted to finish the story that I left as a cliff hanger. Most of you probably thought they stayed forever right? Wrong. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince them to move out here and they went home. But not before we had a fun Friday.

Side Note

Thursday was also Ky's last inspection of the semester for his ROTC Air Force program. His inspections are literally what they sound like; inspections of his dress blues and also they quiz him on important information he needs to know (i.e. the chain of command from President Obama right down to him). I would say about four times this semester I've had to use my OCD for good and lint roll the begeebees out of that uniform. It is solely during these moments that Ky has ever been more attentive to detail than I am.  

My mom had told me once that I should photograph Ky in his dress blues so she could see it. Well at 5:30am I got up with him to take a picture so I could show my mom. Guess what she never saw? Yup, the picture. But I found it among my other pictures of the week and thought "better late than never". So here it is; my handsome man in his Air Force uniform.

Spring break: Day 5

Now, this was arguably the most productive day because we got stuff done before and after I worked. Before work we went to 3 very important places. First stop, Bed Bath and Beyond. Disclaimer: after taking three separate trips to register there, and spending most of our beginning days in Provo shopping at BB&B Ky swore he would never return- so far he has kept his promise. Poor kid, shopping is a woman's game.

Bed Bath and Beyond brought many wonderful things into our home. For example, the BB&B here in Provo has a different entrance than the one back at home. It's covered in paintings of several different temples, not to mention numerous pictures of Christ you can choose from. Which is wonderful of course; just nothing we're used to since we've always lived in areas where the amount of Latter-day Saints does not make up a large percentage of the overall population in that area. A direct quote from both of my parents (which is impressive considering my dad and Alex stopped at Pet Smart before meeting us there- therefore these were two separate thoughts) was "wow, we really are in Utah". So anyway, moving back to the awesome stuff we got. We got a painting of the Portland, OR temple. Which will always be my favorite because that's where I got sealed to the love of my life for time and all eternity! Also, a non-stick pan and a cookie scoop. Not to mention a jewelry tree which I had been looking everywhere for and couldn't find. I would count this trip as very successful. 

Most beautiful temple ever made. Biased opinion, but still true. 

Then we ate lunch at In and Out Burger. Which by the way we decided is completely overrated but one cannot deny that they're OK hamburgers for a dang good price. But there's no excuse for the french fries. Gross. 

Last but not least we made a pit stop at Target for some light shopping. Really though, we only spent like 10 minutes there which any woman can tell you is a straight up miracle. I got two t-shirts that were on sale but more importantly... "The Goonies"! Shot in Astoria, OR and its surrounding areas. Also, cost me $4. Success. 

That evening was most definitely the highlight of the day because we went to downtown Provo to watch BYU's comedy sports. If I understand correctly, it's a comedy skit night where there are two teams of comedians. They have to do improvisations on stage with costumes and such; whichever team gets the most laughs and/or votes wins. Well we thought we were going to go see that but since we went Thursday night instead of Friday or Saturday, we just watched some good ol' fashioned stand up comedy. There were four gentlemen who performed and with each passing one, they got funnier and funnier. By the last guy we were crying and clutching our sides due to laughing induced side cramps. All of us agreed that we wish he had gotten the entire time to perform; he was a gem. 

To top it all off and really make it a fantastic day, we stopped for ice cream at the BYU creamery and then hit our house to watch the movie "Here Comes the Boom" with Kevin James. All in all a great day indeed. 

Spring break: Day 4

Now, at this point you might be thinking that I could have probably combined a couple of these days and minimized the amount of blog posts. Valid point, but I'm going to milk this vacation for all it's worth and individually blog each day. Why, you ask? Because Alex thoroughly enjoys reading my posts and the more posts I supply her with; the more time it buys me in between posts to come up with something awesome to write about. Yeah I know; I thought of that all by myself. 

Alas, I shall recount Day 4 of the great adventure that was known as the Porter family vacation to visit the Fishers in Provo. 

Day 4 was rough for me because my family did something awesome without me. They, along with Ky, went to the Salt Lake City Temple grounds and took a grand tour of not only that, but also the conference center. Lame sauce. Nonetheless, I will proceed to post pictures of this fantastic day. 

 

Alex and my dad in front of the main doors at the SLC temple. 

My parents, also, the SLC temple in all it's beauty. 

Let's pretend I took the picture. So I really did go, I was just behind the camera. 

So, we're going to talk about this picture a little bit. Ky and Alex like each other right? Or at least I think they do. This picture makes me smile every time I see it because there is a good foot or more in between them. This specified distance is always in between them. Something they have in common is their ability to not care is they're going against a social norm, as long as they are comfortable with the situation. For example; I will now recount an actual conversation I had with my sister:

Alex: hey guess what? Ky and I were home alone for 30 minutes while mom and dad picked you up, and we literally didn't say a word to each other.
Me: I'm sorry! Did you try to make conversation with him? You know, he does that a lot, even with me. He's a solitary creature and needs a little nudging every once in a while to talk. He doesn't even notice he's doing it.
Alex: Yeah yeah yeah, I don't actually care. You mistook me telling you as me caring that we didn't talk. It was nice, not awkward. I'm glad neither one of us feels like we need to fill silence with words. 

Strange people I tell you. Very, very strange.  

Spring Break: Day 3

Day 3 was nice and relaxed due to the fact that we were all tired, and were running out of things to do. I know right? After only 2 days in Provo. In Provo's defense, we ran out of things to do in the small amount of time we had before I had to go to work. Not a single one of us ever claimed we were morning people so sleeping in is treasured. What we did do that was much needed was get my laundry done. My whole family helped with the process. First, my mom and I walked over to the laundromat and put them all in. 40 minutes later, Alex and I returned to rotate the clothes through the dryer. Lastly, my dad and I returned another 40 minutes later and bagged them up to take them home. Seems like a mundane task, and it really is but I think it gave my parents a chance to reminisce about the "good ol' days" back when they were dirt poor like us. Another wonderful feature they reminisced about? Our lack of a counter. My mom did most of the cooking while they were here (bless her heart) and more than once I heard "if only I had some more counter space...". Welcome to my world.