Leap Day's Leap of Faith

Four years ago today was an important day in history.  It was the day that I decided to tell Robyn that I wanted to date her and only her.  For me, it was a giant leap of faith.  I was terrified that Robyn would run away with great haste.

You may be thinking that it wasn't that great of a leap.  People are getting together every day.  You are forgetting a few important facts.
1. I was a frightened little child. (a 27 year old frightened little child.)
2. Robyn was also a frightened little child.
3. Due to Robyn's extreme awesomeness I would have lost a great thing if she ran away and probably would have cried myself to sleep.

I tried to make it a fancy date.   I bought her flowers. I made her dinner.  I took her to see a play because she loves the theater.   I even dressed up.  (For those who know me well, any time I am not wearing shorts is a special occasion.)

Afterward, I took her back to my place where we had delicious smoothies.  My plan was to have a nice little chat on the couch and I would casually and smoothly transition into "the talk" where I would explain how much I liked her.

Unfortunately, I am not particularly smooth.  When I say, "not particularly smooth" I mean, "not remotely smooth, not even in the same universe as smooth."  So that smooth, natural moment never really showed up.  The night got later and later.  Robyn was getting tired but I wouldn't take her home.  I was not going to let the night pass without telling her how I felt.

So I came up with a brilliant strategy.  I just blurted out that I had something really important to say.  Then I froze.  And I did something super macho.  I started biting my thumb.  I'm not sure why this occurred.  It's not something I normally do.   I just reserve it for moments of true brilliance and clarity like this one.

This is a reenactment.  At the time I didn't think to take a picture of myself.  Also, I had more hair.

At this point Robyn was pretty confused.  In her view, the really important thing I had to say consisted of nothing.  (With a side of thumb chewing.)

Eventually I was able to get something out.   I don't remember exactly how I put it.  But it was not the brilliant rehearsed speech I had worked on for the previous week.  I said something about how she was great and I wanted to only date her.

This is when she almost ran away for good.  You see, we had been going on a couple dates a week and talking on a daily basis for 6 weeks or so.  I thought that the behavior of constantly asking her out would be a hint that this moment was coming.  She thought that I took every girl I knew on several dates a week, bought them flowers, wore things besides shorts on dates and bit my thumb in pure terror.   Therefore she didn't see it coming.  Her response consisted of "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know..."

Needless to say I wasn't encouraged by her response.  I thought I might have been defeated.  I took her home so that she could sleep on it.  You can probably guess she decided to date me later on.

Today, four years later we are married and living happily ever after.  We went out to a steak house to celebrate the first anniversary of that day.  It was way less awkward, and way more awesome.  I look forward to many more leaps, and leap days, in our future.

The Mystery of the Lone Sock

There are certain questions that no human being can answer.  There are certain mysteries that can't be solved through normal thought and logic.  One of those is the mystery of the lone sock.

You see, at my house, my husbandly duties go beyond such tasks as helping to get past the most difficult levels of Angry Birds.  (Although I would never wish to diminish the importance of that duty.)  At my house, I am the official doer of laundry.  (I tried to make it sound official and important.  It's possible I failed.)

The following are important facts to help you understand the mystery.
1. I put on two socks at a time.
2. I wear two socks at a time.
3. I take off two socks at a time.
4. I put two socks in the laundry.
5. Somehow when the laundry is done there is an odd number of socks.

How is this even possible?  It makes zero sense to me.  Nonetheless, I have developed a special strategy when this happens.  I put the odd sock back into the dirty clothes in hopes that the other one will somehow show up again before I do laundry again.  Sometimes this strategy works.  I'll find a random sock on the floor and throw it in the basket where it is reunited with its mate.

Unfortunately, I have been rewashing the lone sock now since July of last year.

This could be the world's cleanest sock.

I fear the mate to this sock may never return.  But the question remains, where could it possibly be? Is there some magical place where socks without mates go to live lives of solitude?  Can they find love with other socks, even if those socks look different?

It probably left for a sock that looked like this.

Wherever the lost sock is, I hope it is happy.  Meanwhile, I'll keep washing the lone sock and hoping this laundry issue resolves itself.

Bad Guys Eat Garbage

Since the inception of my blog, there have been two different types of posts that people have given me lots of good feedback on.  People seem to love to read about the strange things that my wife does while she's sleeping. They also seemed to really enjoy hearing about the strange and wonderful things that our little sunbeams did.  Of course, we were released from working with the precious little children a while back.

Since then we've moved to a new house and a new ward.  As of today, we've been given a new calling.  Once again we will be given the opportunity to teach the little ones.  The good news for you is that we will once again be supplied with interesting things to share.

Today's story is not actually from the sunbeams.  We were in sharing time with all of the primary children.  We were learning about the story from The Book of Mormon when Nephi's bow breaks.  One of the children had some very important insight that he felt was relevant to the story.  He suddenly exclaimed with great excitement, "Did you know that bad guys eat garbage?"  I was glad he shared such important information because that is a subject that The Book of Mormon is silent on.

I googled "eat garbage" and this was one of the images that came up.  I included it due to its awesomeness.

Valentine's Day Down South

Today is Valentine's Day.  Today is also Tuesday.  Robyn and I decided that the weekend is a more convenient time to celebrate.  Thus we had our Valentine's Day celebration this past weekend.  I told Robyn that I missed nature, and she agreed to spend time in nature if I took her to a place where aforementioned nature was warmer.

We decided to spend the weekend in St. George.  It is conveniently located near Snow Canyon which happens to be a part of nature.  It also happens to contain the last temple in Utah that we had not been to.  So I was able to accomplish an important item on my bucket list, which is to visit every temple in Utah.  We spent the morning in the St. George Temple, then spent the afternoon exploring nature.

As we drove into Snow Canyon park, there was a Wildlife Crossing sign that had a picture of a Gila Monster.  From that time forward, my entire goal was to see a Gila Monster.  Unfortunately, we saw exactly zero venomous lizards.  It was very sad indeed.

We hiked an area where there had been an ancient volcano.  I thought the volcanic rock looked super cool.  I stopped to touch it.  (Touching things is important)  As I knelt down to touch it, I exclaimed, "This is soo cool!"

My exclamation frightened Robyn.  She made a small yelp sound and backed away.  I didn't understand why she was so frightened.  She told me that everything I think is cool is generally gross or dangerous.  I think those are her special words for things that are awesome.

See?  Neither gross nor dangerous

As we kept hiking I found more cool stuff.  I discovered these cholla cacti.  Remember how important it is to touch things?  Robyn made fun of me when touching them hurt.

Perhaps these are dangerous.  But not gross.

They may be dangerous, but next to me they're precious.

We got to frolick in nature.  We discovered a few more awesome things.  I came upon this pit of death.

I'm pretty sure pit of death is a technical term

You can't see how deep it is but it was a few hundred feet down.  I was too afraid to stand close enough to get a good shot because I had tripped and fallen like three feet away from it.  I was fearing death at that moment.  (Perhaps I understand why Robyn thinks all the things I like are dangerous.)


We came upon a giant rock (or petrified dune, or something)

When you see a giant petrified dune you climb it.  I'm pretty sure that's one of the rules of nature.

We got to the top and discovered a beautiful view of Snow Canyon.

This is also a beautiful view of Robyn.

All in all it was a great trip. I was able to recharge in nature. We were able to spend some quality one on one time together. I even got to cross an item off my bucketlist. It was easily one of my favorite Valentine's Day celebrations. But don't worry. Robyn still got flowers today.

The Mysterious Picture

I need your help.  This is very important.

A while back, I got in a debate with my mom.  She said something about the time we visited Four Corners.  (the point where the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet.)  I was offended, because I have no memory of visiting Four Corners, and it is an important item on my bucket list.

That is when my mom presented the following picture as supporting evidence.

Some may think this is fairly solid evidence.  However, I have googled the Four Corners monument, and I don't think that's where we are.

This precious child is now in his 50s.  He is demonstrating what the monument looked like in the 1960s.

 However, it's hard to tell, because they have remodeled the monument a few times.  So it's possible that we were there at a time when it looked different.

That's where you come in.  I need some real detective work from the people.  I feel that it's important to know where that picture was taken.  Does anyone recognize the location where my siblings and I are unable to open our eyes?

Don't worry.  If you really think it is the Four Corners, you can say so.  I can always claim it's photoshopped so  I can still win the debate with my mom.