Two Year Anniversary

Today is Reed and my 2 year anniversary! We didn't do much because we had school but I think Reed has some adventure up his sleeve for this weekend. He did make me a lovely breakfast and then I made him a kinda fancy romantic dinner of salmon, potatoes, asparagus and a chocolate fondue dessert. Anyways, in honor of our anniversary I wanted to post a couple wedding/bridal shots to reminisce and this darling poem Reed wrote about our first date (he wrote it right before we got engaged). I will treasure this poem forever. Reed writes great poems.

 

First Date

There comes a time in a man’s life

The moment he tries to find his wife

But every story must have a start

A time or place where a girl steals his heart

This story begins with me sitting in class

Professor Holland had a question to ask.

So he called his TA’s to go help him out

And carry around mikes so we didn’t have to shout.

The girl that stood up really caught my eye.

Fifteen minutes I stared at her, I cant lie.

During that time I didn’t hear a word

But I told my buddy, “I’m gonna go out with her!”

Three weeks went by without any luck

To get her alone so that we could talk.

So finally I said “Today’s the day!”

I knew exactly what I would say.

So after class I finally manned up

And followed her out like a little scared pup.

I went up to her right then and there

And blurted out, “I love your long hair.”

I found out her name so I went online.

If she would accept my friend request, that would be a sign.

I also looked up when she taught in the lab.

Yes, I’m a stalker. Is that bad?

So I’d go and get help from that hottie TA

Madison and Marbury.. now who were they?

But I still didn’t have the guts to ask her out

Would she say yes? I had my doubts.

She speaks French so I translated a phrase

And carried it in my pocket for days and days

So finally I gave it to her in a rush

My face turned red and I started to blush.

 She wrote me some French that I couldn’t read.

The ten numbers on bottom were all I would need.

So I called her that night and I set up a date.

Saturday November 22^nd, I just couldn’t wait.

I thought and I thought of what we could do

Something fun and exciting but romantic too.

So I called and talked to my family and friends

To get ideas and updates on the latest dating trends.

The big night arrived and I went to her door

I can still remember the shirt that she wore.

We went to Bajio to get something to eat.

What happened next is embarrassing to me.

We got our food and we both sat down

She grabbed her fork and started to chow.

I stopped her right before the food reached her face

I said, “Excuse me, do you think we can pray?”

Somehow she continued that very first date

So we went to watch hockey and that started late.

I taught her Zambonni and she was impressed.

Who won the game? I couldn’t care less.

Then we went to Color me Mine

To paint some pottery and have a good time.

She painted my cup and I painted hers.

Red, black, blue, and green: she loves those colors.

Then back to her house with starbursts in hand.

Who can unwrap one first? She says she can.

She got a phone call and talked in French

While I ate popcorn and sat on the bench.

Downstairs we went to play the Wii.

Beating a girl in Nintendo, how hard could that be?

Bowling, boxing, Tennis, Baseball.

You name the game, she won them all.

Then we decided to go old school

At Super Mario I looked like a fool.

She knew all the secrets cuz she played a lot.

Beating the castle she was soo hott.

A few other games and then Bubble Bop.

We were addicted and just couldn’t stop.

Finally we ended at a quarter past three

It was the greatest first date ever, if you ask me.

Dallas

So I have finally finished interviewing for 2012 summer associate positions. It has been crazy. For the past month and a half I have spent almost every Thursday and Friday flying around for interviews. Since my first interviews were in the summer time, Reed and I decided to make a vacation out of my week of interviewing in Dallas. So here are some pictures of our time in Dallas. Oh and BTW, after spending much time considering our different options we have decided to spend the first half of next summer in Palo Alto and the second half in Dallas so that I can compare my two top firms and we can both compare the different areas etc. Reed might actually spend the bulk of the summer in Palo Alto and I will go to Dallas alone if he gets an internship that wants him for longer than 7 weeks. We are really excited about the opportunity to discover both areas. I have been so blessed to get offers from the firms I did, all of them were really great firms and it was a hard choice. But I'm extremely grateful that it was a choice I had to make since it's so difficult to get any job offers in this economy.

Dallas- I wish I had gotten better photos of the city and especially of the freeway system in Dallas because it's seriously like a spider web but supposedly it works really well at keeping traffic quite minimal for a big city.

   







Dallas Arboretum- We loved walking through these incredible botannical gardens in Dallas. It was pretty hot while we were there (it was during the time when Dallas was setting a record for the most consecutive days over 100) but we went a little earlier in the morning so it was not too bad. Inside of the arboretum there are a bunch of little houses/huts etc to show the story of some of the history of Dallas.

We also braved the heat to go to Six Flags in Dallas. We didn't like it as much as Six Flags Magic Mountain, particularly because it was SOO hot (which is why we went on a water ride almost immediately and got soaked) and also cause it's a lot older so some of the rides gave us a bit of a headache. We felt like old people when we were ready to leave after just 3 hours :)...we held out a little longer and managed to stay for about 4.5 hours but we were EXHAUSTED when we finally left.

Friends from France, Bryce Canyon and All Sorts of Craziness!

Before I get too busy in school I wanted to blog about our time with the Lemarchands. They came all the way from France to see the natural beauties of the Western United States and boy did they see a lot! Bryce Canyon, Arches, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Lake Powell etc... They camped for 3 weeks! Reed, me, my sister Tracie and my brother Jayden tagged along on one of their excursions to Bryce Canyon and had a wonderful time then spent the rest of the weekend at my family's cabin while they continued on to Arches. Then on their way back after a couple weeks we got to hang out with them again so we ate, swam, shot guns (only one of them had ever even touched a real gun before--guns are not permitted in France) and took a tour around the St. George temple and in the visitor's center. We had such a fun time with them. I'm so glad we have kept such a strong friendship with the family ever since I lived with them years ago as an au pair. Now my family is really close with them too and they all want to learn French to be able to communicate with those of them who don't speak English.

First Off: Bryce Canyon
This was actually both Reed and my first time at Bryce Canyon and it was incredible. The really bizarre thing though was the fact that we didn't hear any English while we were there. The whole park was FULL of French people and a couple Italians haha. It's funny how Europeans and Americans both flock to each others countries for vacations yet many of us have never even seen what there is to see in our own countries :).

We started at the top, hiked down through the canyons and then hiked (or rather dragged because we were so tired) ourselves back up the canyon on the other side.      






















One theme you will notice through the pictures is that my bro Jayden really hates taking ordinary pictures so don't be surprised if ever you see something very odd in the background of the picture and realize it's jayden pretending to fall off a cliff or save the world or die or something odd like that.

 I think it's fairly obvious that by this time we are a little sick of hiking. 













Then when it was all over Jayden and I took a moment to gaze across the horizon and revel in our great accomplishment...

And Reed and Jayden taught Julien how to strike cool poses in pictures.

Up Next...FUN AT THE CABIN
Although the Lemarchands invited us to stay and sleep in their tent (on the hard ground fighting off bugs and wild beasts all night), we unfortunately just had to decline since my parents were waiting, I'm sure very eagerly, for us to return to the cabin. Since I didn't have to go back to work until Tuesday (it was the weekend of July 24th), we decided to spend the rest of our long weekend at the cabin.

We took a long fourwheeling ride out to some lava tube caves. The fourwheeling was very fun. However, you'll notice there are no pictures of me in the cave. That's not because I wasn't there but because nobody would have dared to take my picture in that moment due to the mood I was in while crawling around like a reptile in a wet/dirty/disgusting cave. However you can see by the picture taken with Reed right after the cave, it was a very unpleasant experience.

And Finally: ADVENTURES IN ST. GEORGE
When the Lemarchands came back through St. George on their way to the Vegas airport, we had a great time showing them around our home. First we brought out the slip-n-slide since none of the kids had ever played on one. From the looks of things, Reed has really been missing the slip-n-slide days himself :-).

 





















Then some of us took a dip in the pool and after that we all went to the temple.

Our final activity with the Frenchies was to take them shooting. They had freaked out a little last night when my dad showed them some of his guns, they thought he was joking and that they were really just fake guns haha. They couldn't believe we had real guns in our house and that even my little brother Jayden had shot with them before. So we all went out shooting. Almost everyone shot the big guns and then my dad let Julien and Ines shoot the little bebe gun (he would have let them shoot the other ones but Christine was just too worried).

They REALLY got excited/nervous when my dad brought out the big artillery...This was actually my first time shooting this type of a gun as well (obviously since I'm pretty sure I'm holding it wrong)

I LOVE this picture of Ines but actually it really mis-portrays her because she was loving shooting that bebe gun. She shot it for like 40 minutes until she finally hit the little circle target my dad had drawn for her.

At the end of the trip we all sat around and watched Rio together. As you can tell, the kids really miss their best friend: "Ouide".

And That's All Folks!