Rampant Bellytants

I decided a month or so ago that it was time for summertime things to happen, because it always seems to happen that September creeps up on us before Cody and I remember to enjoy summery things, like barbecues, night games, watery fun, and general tomfoolery in the warm delicious weather.

One thing that was high on my summer to-do list was tubing down the Provo River. Ever since seeing the corny Utah version of Pride and Prejudice, I've had this longing to try dragging Cody up the canyon, renting some tubes, and just going for it. Luckily, I didn't have to drag or anything, we just decided to go today and went!

The day couldn't have been more gorgeous or perfect for tubing. We've been tubing down the Henry Fork river (I think that was the name) in Idaho, and that river is so shallow by mid-June that you have to get up every 50 feet to get yourself off of a sandbar. On the Provo River today, the water was pretty high and there were some rapids in some places, and there were a lot of other people in tubes, rafts, kayaks, and fishing...all of that just made it more fun. We rented our tubes from a company that shuttled us up near the dam with our tubes with a bunch of other people, gave us our tubes and a couple of tips (after making us sign WE WILL NOT SUE YOU papers) and let us all loose. The water wasn't too cold, the air was perfect, and the sun was at just the right angle to not be annoying or too hot.

There were a few obnoxious kids in the river with water guns about a quarter of a mile downstream from where we started, and they squirted everybody as they floated by. Cody got angry and started an argument with the kids' father on the riverbank, which was halted by us floating anticlimactically downstream...

Anyway, we tipped a few times, enjoyed the ambiance of the experience, and talked to a lot of random people. We ingeniously used my flip-flops as paddles to prevent us from getting stuck in the bank's shrubbery or stuck on rocks, which earned us some weird looks, but having some paddles was pretty useful. Thank goodness for my 9 1/2 shoe size, or the flip-flops wouldn't have been nearly as useful.

Once we got out of the river, we decided we were hungry and almost to Heber anyway, so we drove up to this cafe that we'd found on our honeymoon 4 years ago and have been back to a few times because it was so fantastic that first time, ordered the same sandwich we always get (a panini with portobello mushrooms, goat cheese, roasted red peppers, and asparagus) and got ourselves some chocolate and creme brulee gelato...excuse me while I drool over the memory...

It's been a great day.

I'm just wondering...what traits do you value in a friend?

For one reason or another I’ve been thinking about what my strengths and weaknesses are. I always seem to dwell on the defects I see in my own (and often other people’s) characters, so I thought it would help my brain to write out everything I know about myself that’s good and bad. I figure I can’t be as bad as I feel on the worst days, or as good as I feel on the best. Also, I realize that actually categorizing some of these things as positive or negative attributes is somewhat psychologically revealing. I can’t help it, I like to label things.

Strengths:

• I’m a domestic goddess. I sew, cook, bake, and clean with the best of them, and if you give me 30 minutes warning before coming to my house you’ll have a hearty welcome and a refreshing drink or treat.
• I’m funny. Sometimes. And only to some people…(but almost always to myself.)
• I’m a good listener
• I have an excellent memory for people’s stories, which helps with the listening abilities
• I’m honest but I usually try to be tactful too
• I’m smart enough
• I have a strong sense of what is fair and what isn’t
• I’m quirky (yes, it’s a strength…sometimes)
• I spell well
• I have good penmanship and beautiful cursive
• I give a good compliment
• I’m compassionate and caring about others
• I’m imaginative
• I’m trusting
• I usually try to find the good in others until they either hurt me or shove the bad under my nose so often I can’t help but see it
• I’m outgoing…sometimes
• I try to not be judgmental
• I tend to get along with the male gender in general

Weaknesses:

• I’m impatient
• I’m needy
• I don’t like being ignored
• I want people to like me
• I’m petulant
• I have bad posture
• Grammar’s not my strong suit
• I exaggerate without thinking
• I am not self-confident
• I depend on others approval for my self-worth
• I am definitely weird/awkward around everybody
• I’m lazy
• I tend to be negative about myself
• I’m shy…sometimes
• I change my mind a lot
• I tend to snap-judge things, situations, or people and have to backtrack frequently
• I don’t get along with most females

What do you consider your greatest strength or weakness?

Here you go, here's proof. Proof that I am crazy, a nerd, dork... The list is too long to finish. Actually, I'm just too lazy. *Sigh.* These are some pictures from our California trip to go and cosplay at the Anime Expo last weekend.

The view of downtown LA from our hotel room:

Some shots of Cody and I, before we headed over to the convention...

We met my friend Juan, his best friend Neisha, and their buddy Otis (who isn't shown here, but he took a lot of pictures which he'll be sending to us, hooray!) for the first time at the convention. I made Juan's robes for him, and in exchange he's drawing me a portrait. ^_^ He's a very nice fellow. Cody and I both like him.

Juan's friend Adneisha, who could probably cause a nuclear explosion with her energy and cuteness. Neisha didn't have time to get a cosplay outfit together, but she helped us make friends and harassed us all into having fun and got us all to get along. She's just as dorky about anime as Juan is, and he's about 10x more dorky than Cody and I. They're both awesome people, I hope to be able to see them again someday!


Me, Cody, and Juan, with some people from the same anime we were cosplaying. We saw these people on the escalators, Neisha and I shouted in excitement at them, and they tracked us down so we could all have pictures together.

There was all kinds of fun merchandise and fan art, luckily Cody and I only escaped with a few plushies and a t-shirt. Here are some funny Pac-Man fighting plushies that I was tempted by, but unable to part with the $50 it would've cost to bring these babies home:
And here's the package of my first pocky. Japanese kids love pocky apparently, and when finding that out and discovering some pocky at this terrific little convenience store in downtown, I had to buy some and try it. It's really quite the addictive treat: biscuit sticks dipped in chocolate, sometimes with different flavors. The coconut is my favorite so far!

The day after the convention, Cody and I meandered around downtown LA. We caught a showing of Hancock (it was okay, not great), doorbell-ditched some cherry cheesecake at Juan's house because he was feeling too crappy to come hang out with us, and then we went to Venice Beach.


Cody found this statue below incredibly funny. Below the statue is the plaque that went with it.

In case you're wondering, the plaque reads:

On Sunday, we started home but didn't make it as quickly as we'd planned. Our transmission died just before Hesperia. No mechanics were working, which is probably for the best, but we had to hunker down in a little motel until Monday, when somebody would take a look at the car. Luckily, we were blessed and found good, honest people that were kind enough to help us through the situation. There was the guy at Firestone who didn't charge us a thing after he took 20 minutes to decide it was the transmission. The transmission shop owner, who called Avis (a rental car place) for us, got our car finished half a day earlier than he said he could, and seemed too kind to be real. The Avis staff, who were friendly and efficient...and everybody told us to ask for discounts at the next place we went to. I almost want to live in Hesperia after that!

Anyway, the car was fixed speedily and we got home Tuesday at 3 in the morning. It was a great trip!

Cody and I get to travel to LA on Thursday for AX, an anime convention! Whee, further confirmation that we're nuts. We're both going to cosplay, as some of our favorite anime characters. I've been working feverishly on our costumes the past couple of days, and hopefully with the time I can hem and hand-applique things in the car, they'll be complete by Friday. I'm still not sure what people do at anime conventions, but I'm pretty excited to just go and meet other crazies like us.

Here's the anime character I'm cosplaying, Yoruichi Shihoin from Bleach:

Yoruichi can turn into a black cat. She's the goddess of flash, which just means she's super speedy and can outpace pretty much everybody else on the show. Teasing and mocking, yet serious when required...Yoruichi has also been known to consume vast quantities of food with gusto with no effect on her waistline.

And here's her best friend (possibly more, if you're a shipper [relationship freak]) Kisuke Urahara, who Cody's going to cosplay:
Urahara is somewhat of a mad scientist. He's very smart and subtle, and deceptively light hearted. He and Yoruichi used to be important people in Soul Society but were banished because of an evil plot...he's the main protagonist's mentor and teacher for most of Bleach so far.

Anyway...after we go to the anime convention, we get to spend the 5th chilling at the beach and shopping, and the 6th we'll come home. It'll be a quick trip, but I'm very excited!

I can't remember what life is like without Cody. We have so much fun together, every day is new and different. It's been a challenge, keeping things happy and healthy and moving along, but the payment I've received for my minimal efforts in our relationship far exceed the cost to myself. I'm forever thankful for the blessing of having such a wonderful husband and friend!

Highlights:

We got a flat tire in Snow Canyon, driving back from visiting an animal shelter on our first Valentine's day. I tried to swerve to miss a big rock in the middle of the curvy road and instead accidentally hit it. What a happy way to spend our romantic evening together, and to spend the last $100 in our bank account to get it fixed. I remember some cowboy stopping, not to help us, but to look at us like we were idiots for hitting the rock in the first place and then driving off. It's still one of my favorite Valentine's Day memories, trying to fix our flat tire together on a cold, scary canyon highway.

Being sealed for time and all eternity in the Bountiful LDS temple. I still remember giggling in front of all our friends and family during the ceremony, then blushing because I'd giggled at a very serious moment.

Getting in our first (and I think it was our only) fight, me storming about and fuming while Cody quietly listened. I stomped off to my sister's house, realizing once I'd walked over there that she was probably having a nice night with her new husband and I shouldn't interrupt them with my pettiness. I walked home, repentant and ready to apologize. I'm usually the one in the wrong--but when I'm not I totally rub it in Cody's face. :P He likes me sassy and annoying like that.

These four years have been awesome beyond words. I love you, Cody!

I'm at my wits end. Is sleep so hard to be had? Babies, cats, computers, plants, dogs, trolls, eyes, giants, boulevards, and vampires can all sleep fine, why not me? I can be many of those things on occasion. You'd think the sleeping ability would creep into my blood from being a vampire troll baby every other week.

But no.

Lately I've been waking up early, around 4-6, no matter when I go to bed. I go to bed at 10, I wake up at 4. Last night I was so exhausted I went to bed at 9:15, promptly fell asleep, and trapped Cody with my heavy head on his chest. He said he couldn't get me to move for an hour! I slept so very well until 1:45 until Truffle woke me by growling at nothing. Fruitlessly I tried going back to sleep for an hour. I gave up and decided to play on the Internet until a decent hour to leave the house...I went and cleaned Cody's office at 4:30, came home at 6:30, and tried to go to sleep again for an hour and a half. Nope.

Perhaps I should try using a 2-by-4 to knock myself out? Sleeping pills? Duct tape my eyes closed?!

I'm really frustrated, but I know this will all work out if I give it time and patience. Right now I just feel like this: