Typical Hawaiian December

Hello.

Merry Christmas! :)

Here I am, my last December in Hawaii (well, my last one for now). I just wanted to put in some pictures of what we’ve been up to (I decided to leave out the bleeding over students’ papers and all the grading of finals hehe).

 

 

 

My mom’s ornaments were stuck together…

 Jake looks so cute hanging ornaments. (He’s got a good eye.)

 Sorry it’s kind of blurry—but this little one is our tree. We love it.

And below are our two NEW ornaments (Jake’s is the santa, mine is the chipmunks):

 

On the blue board is Jake.

 

 

 

 

Here’s Jake again. We were driving past Pipeline and, well I’ll let the picture speak for itself (Let’s just say that these waves were HUGE)

 

 

 

 

 

One lucky surfer. 

 

Waimea. I will miss my beautiful Hawaii.

 

Jake was saying that it doesn’t feel Christmas. I said “Weird, rain and huge waves feel like Christmas to me.” Granted, it was a beautiful sunny day, but the huge waves at Waimea still made it feel like Christmas. :)

Plan B…for now :)

So I know there are a lot (all seven of you wonderful, kind people that follow our blog) of people are wondering what’s going on with us. Well, here’s what we’ve got so far:

Our plan up until going to Korea is still pretty much the same. We are still flying out of here come December 20th. We’ll be flying into Portland and then get picked up by Jake’s dad. We’ll stay with the in-laws, go to Pocatello, ID for Jake’s younger brother’s wedding on the 27th. We’re thinking (still not for sure yet) that we might stay in Pocatello longer to spend time with all the wonderful people that live there :) Plus we want to do some poking around to figure out where we want to stay. Also, for those of you that missed the Facebook status I had a while ago, my senior paper got accepted into a Harry Potter Conference….in SCOTLAND! so part of our plan now includes going! :) (Pretty cool, huh?)

While we are super bummed that we won’t be teaching in Korea, it has opened some doors for us (You’re right, Meghan. Definitely God’s little stepping stones at work here). We were afraid we wouldn’t be able to go to Scotland because we’d be busy in Korea, and we were sure the school wouldn’t give us time off (not twice). See, my best friend is getting hitched in July and the conference is in May. See the issue? BUT, now that there is no Korea, we can drive down the wedding in Utah, and, instead of buying one round-trip ticket from Korea to Utah for the wedding, save that money and use it to buy two round-trip tickets to Scotland for the conference. Pretty sweet deal. I mean, don’t get me wrong we were stoked to go to Korea, but we’re stoked to do this, too.

One last note. The plan now includes getting jobs and saving (and choosing) for grad-school. We still don’t know where exactly we’ll be settling down (so to speak) for now. The community college in Pendleton is hiring; now provided we can get those jobs, we’ll stay in Pendleton. But, if there are no jobs, then we might venture into Pocatello to find work. Ultimately we’d rather do something that involves our English degrees, but work is work, money is money and all that. :)

So…that’s where we are for now. Wish us luck.

we got an e-mail...

Here's the jist:
"I am very sorry to inform you that we’ve decided to put the Teach Abroad program on a temporary year-long hiatus, effective immediately. This hiatus means that no participants will be sent on program in 2012, including those who have paid their deposit or paid in full."

translation: No more Korea.

It was good while it lasted. I was super excited...while I thought we were going.

I guess it's true: Stuff happens. Now we move on to Plan B...too bad we never bothered with a Plan B since Plan A was working out so well.

I couldn’t handle it yesterday. Today, I still won’t believe it.

November 25, 2011

My best friend died today.

We held hands, becki and I, squeezing every now and then, not daring to let go, hoping that some magic would kick in and our joint hands would bring him back. We had watched him. His labor breathing slowed. We know he was hurting. We know he’s in a better place. None of that takes away our pain.

I keep expecting to see him. His dark coat. His beautiful, soft, black coat. We kept some of it.

I keep expecting to hear him. His nails tap tap tapping on the bamboo floor. His prreow—I’m hungry.

I keep expecting to feel him. His twenty pounds of fur and fat flop onto my unsuspecting stomach. His soft velvety paws.

I said goodbye

I said I love you.

I said thank you for everything you’ve done.

I said thank you for being my friend.

I wasn’t ready.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

He was supposed to die of old age.

He wasn’t supposed to get cancer.

He wasn’t supposed to get heart disease.

He was only five.

He was my baby.

my friend
my confidant

I want him here. With me. Now.

I want to see him running down the stairs cause he hears the can opener.

He was too young.

My heart isn’t broken. It’s shattered. My husband tries to help me pick up the pieces, but it’s difficult. Every time I see his bowl, or think I hear him meow, I drop all the pieces again and cry the rest of my heart out.

It doesn’t feel right.

There is something missing.

The padding of little paws is gone.

He supposed to be sleeping on the couch. He’s supposed to roll over and look at me with those beautiful eyes.

To the very end those eyes were telling me everything would be ok. We lied for each other. I lied, telling him it was just medicine. It was going to make everything ok. Just like he told me.

I prayed. I begged God not to take him. What could He possibly want with a cat? He was so young. I promised I’d do anything, everything. I’d finish every project I ever started. I’d stop my schooling and start having kids. I wouldn’t go to Korea. I would give up everything to make that little ball of fur healthy, happy and whole again.

I know he’s still out there. He didn’t just cease to exist because his heart stopped. I know he’s watching over me. I just wish I could watch him too.

two of my favorite guys in the whole world.

i will love you always, Bigotes.

Korea

We finally got our criminal background checks back--neither of us are criminals...big surprise.i could have told them that if they would have asked ;) We were finally able to get both our background checks and our diplomas notarized. Then we took them to the governor (well he/she wasn't technically the governor, i just remember that governor was in his/her title. maybe it was lieutenant governor, but that doesn't sound right. ANYWAY) to get apostatized (again, maybe not the right word. maybe it was apostulated?..who knows)

BASICALLY... we had a bunch of paperwork we needed done but couldn't do because the FBI hadn't gotten back to us and now they did so we were able to. :]

I have to tell you; it's pretty nerve-wracking. thinking that this time next year we will be nearing the END of our stay in Korea when we haven't even gotten the visas yet.

we have 33 days left in hawaii

must. kill....flies!

so the other day i went home and there were 10--i kid you not--10 flies in our teeny, tiny apartment. naturally, i killed them. all 10. i sat back down to reading Calvin and Hobbes and not 3 minutes later, 3 MORE flies were buzzing around the house. i killed those (the total is up to 13 flies). i sat BACK down and 3 more flies came out. either i have a home that allows for the rebirth of flies or we've got a hole. it's not like if we leave our door open they'll come in. We live on the third story of an apartment building for crying out loud. i thought being up high would mean LESS bugs. NOPE. we still have ants, and now we have flies. we NEVER had this many flies in TVA.


i can't believe we're paying more money for less space, and more bugs.


i am seriously disliking Hawaii very very much. VERY much.

ok. i'm all vented....for now....until i go home....and see 15 flies.... :( any ideas?

On the Contor Frontier

Well, teaching is....


AWESOME! it's a lot of fun. Jake is teaching 2 Eng 101 classes and I'm teaching 1 Eng 101 class (and that's plenty for me).

As far as Korea goes, we haven't started interviewing with schools--although really it should be just a matter of time. we've started our background checks and stuff :) we're pretty stoked.

we've both been writing a lot, so lots of creative juices have been flowing--it's been fun. hopefully we can keep it up.

"O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you" (Mormon 6:17)

So I was reading a friend's blog, and she was discussing 9/11 and the atheists that are trying to get the cross taken down from the site. naturally, I perused CNN and other news sites to try and understand as much as I could.
Here's what I found out:

It was not the videos that rent my soul with anguish (as Mormon would say), it was the comments below them. I haven't attached names to any of these

"Wow, I can feel the Christian love! praise the dead jew on a stick! AMEN"

"So who made God? See Atheists never said anything about something coming from nothing….it seems god believers are the one saying something came from nothing (god) and he always existed (ridiculous unless you accept magic)"

"I'm also an atheist. I was merely pointing out the ridiculousness of venerating a cross being found in the wreckage of a building pretty much made out of crosses (trusses and beams crossed with each other every which way). Of course there's also the ridiculousness of venerating a symbol/icon of a God who apparently couldn't be bothered to stop the horror that was 9/11 from happening"



i don't want to argue over who's wrong, or if there is a wrong or anything like that. Honestly, i kind of want to cry. I’m not going to say all atheists are evil because I don’t think that’s true. I’ve met some very kind atheists who have decided they don’t believe in a higher being and still show respect to those who do. I feel like the ignorance and insensitivity with which this is being dealt with is an issue. I’ve never been one to push my beliefs on others. I don’t need other people to believe in my God to know I do. I seek for understanding. I seek to correct the misconceptions about my religion.

My heart breaks for those who do not fully try to understand the God that they do or do not believe in. It hurts because of those who choose to tear down the belief system of others who strive desperately to hold on to it.
These people that said the quotes above are what William Golding would classify as grade-two thinkers, “For grade-two thinking destroys without having the power to create” (3). As Golding explains, grade-two thinkers use “What is truth?” to end conversations; a grade-one thinker asks “what is truth?” and then seeks the answer (4).

I’m incredibly grateful for the turmoil and fire that all of the prophets have gone through to get us The Book of Mormon. I’ve never been so grateful for the light it offers me. I hope someday that these folks will decide to search for an answer, and I hope that in finding their answer, they allow others to believe in the answers they have found for themselves.

In honor of our anniversary…and cause we’re moving part 1

we’ve taken pictures of all the cards we got on our wedding (and throughout the year)

thanks to everyone for the support then and now. If you don’t see your card let us know. it probably fell out of our bag and is still on the dresser. :]