Quel & Marie's Excellent Adventures

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIE!!!!

2009-04-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a birthday cake with a bit of pizzaz and style for you! You know, a bit of black and white since that's what I tend to like and just not very mainstream :). Love ya friend!!! Hope you have a great day!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

I realize I still have a Hawaii post pending... I'll finish it up one of these days (still waiting for that inspiration to hit so that I doesn't just sound like a travel log :))... but anyway, it's Easter so I thought I'd do a post and wish you all a HAPPY EASTER!

So, in my family we always celebrated Easter but it never was a massive production of any sort. I think some of that has to do with the fact that we lived away from extended family and so we just sort of did our thing. Every Easter, however, we would each get a large chocolate egg that my parents would hide around the house. We each had a specific egg assigned to us and we had to find our own egg (you couldn't just take someone else's egg). My parents would hide the ones for us younger kids in fairly easy locations and the ones for the older kids would be harder to find. Anyway, after we got to be a certain age my parents stopped hiding our eggs and they would just give them to us. Well, apparently the year that my parents stopped hiding the eggs Debbie was pretty devastated because she was quite fond of searching for the egg. She never told my parents but Rick and I knew she was disappointed so we decided to hide Debbie's egg so she could get her egg hunt experience. (I don't remember this story but this is the story my dad told me that Debbie told him). Side note to Debbie: Debs if the story is incorrect feel free to correct it :). Also if you are reading the post today, today being Easter Sunday or Monday morning, you should probably just close my blog and come back to it on Tuesday... consider that my spoiler alert... we don't want this to turn into another Secret Santa incident :). Ok, that's the end of my side not to Debbie. Anyway, so after hearing Debbie tell this story my dad decided to buy some Easter candy so that he could hide it for Debbie and make us search for it. Debbie, however, had Easter at her in-laws today and since she wasn't around my dad just handed us our Easter candy and hid Debbie's for tomorrow (I picked the hiding spot though... good luck finding it :)).

So anyway, here's a picture of my dad and me with my Easter candy.

And a picture of Dan and my mom with the flowers Dan bought for my mom.

These are crappy pictures cause they were taken with my iPhone since I didn't have my camera with me but thought I'd share them anyway. I am missing the picture Ose took of Nicole with their Easter candy cause it was on his iPhone. Side note to Ose: Send me the picture you took and I'll put it up on the blog.

Anyway, hope you guys had a Happy Easter!

Hawaiian Adventures

2009-03-29T10:18:00.001-07:00

So, I was busy while I was in Hawaii... oh please who am I kidding, I wasn't busy at all... I just didn't want to do any work so I never got around to actually blogging about our adventures. Marie and I had intended to blog... really, we thought about it most nights, but I was jet lagged and would go to bed several hours before Marie did and when I wasn't asleep we were taking advantage of the fact that I was awake and watching movies instead of blogging (I know, hard to believe that I actually stayed awake during movies, especially given the jet lag but I did. In fact, I NEVER fell asleep during any of the movies we watched while I was there - we did only watch two but still...). The 4 hour time difference was brutal and meant that I was pretty much done for at 9:00 pm and awake at 5:00 am most days. Going to bed that early sucked but waking up early actually meant that I could go running (yes, I did get one 5 mile run in while I was in Hawaii... I should have gotten 3 runs done while in Hawaii - an 8 mile, a 5 mile, and a 3 mile - but I was on vacation...) or go to the beach while everyone else was still sleeping.

Anyway, back in Utah now. Life is back to normal. The snow is still here. And I'm definitely wishing I were still in Hawaii... So since I don't get to be there I'll just reminisce and tell you the tales of our Hawaiian adventures...

I got there on Friday and we took advantage of the fact that we were already "in town" and stopped by Pearl Harbor. It was a quick trip to Pearl Harbor but we did manage to get a few pictures and a Pearl Harbor pin for Dan's pin collection.

I don't really remember much about this anchor but the sign did say that it was incredibly heavy... don't remember how heavy exactly (again, I was on vacation and apparently so was my brain).

This is Marie's most natural smile ever :).

The USS Bowfin.

And Marie supposedly looking "dangerous" next to a suicide missile (yeah, she looks terrifying).

When we decided to head back to Laie we found out that whatever highway it was that we were intending to take was closed because part of it had flooded (I don't really remember if it flooded or if some pole had fallen) so we had to take an alternate route which ended up being a good thing because we got to stop at Matusmoto's and get their classic shaved ice... I can't remember what flavors I ended up picking but it was incredibly good!

Here we are standing outside of Matsumoto's waiting in line for our shaved ice. That about sums it up for day one. After we got back to Laie, I was introduced to Marie's friend and then I was out for the night. The next day we had breakfast at the Hukilau Cafe (those of you who have watched "50 First Dates" have heard of the Hukilau Cafe) and then went to Waimae - Marie's favorite beach. The weather was gorgeous and I was thrilled to get some sun, water, and sand. We played catch with a small squishy football (I did much better at throwing than catching - my catching was pretty pitiful), did some boogie boarding, but mostly just laid in the sun.

The sandals in the pictures are my "Havaianas" which I purchased in Brazil - Havaianas means Hawaiians in Portuguese so these are my "Hawaiians" in Hawaii :).

And here we are just laying in the sun...

And here we are with Bambi and Vicki after laying in the sun...

And, as many of you know, Marie has a bit of an affinity for pyramids...

Marie also has a tradition of having people stand on her shoulders when she's at Waimae... usually this is done in the water but I had already been in the water and I had just gotten warm again and didn't really want to go back into the water so we did this on land (and survived :)).

After the beach we stopped someplace (I can't remember what it was called) for Acai bowls. Acai bowls are a Brazilian thing and ironically the only one in the group that had never had an Acai bowl was the Brazilian... sad huh? It was fabulous but best of all the place where we got the bowls also sold bathing suits from Brazil... YAY! I was devastated when my parents moved away from Brazil because I didn't know where I would be buying my bathing suits anymore... now I know :).

Here's Marie, fully focused, ordering our Acai bowls.

Sunday morning I got up early (shocking, I know...) and walked over to the beach. I sat there for a while and just watched the waves... it was so incredibly peaceful and serene.

Marie and Bambi joined me when they got up and we sat and talked for a while.

I know, how peaceful is that for a Sunday morning? We didn't have church until 2:00 pm so we had plenty of time to just chill in the morning.

We did eventually get dressed and go to church... here's the proof...

This is starting to sound too much like a travel log for my taste... I realize it is sort of a "travel log" but travel logs have a tendency to get boring... so, I think I'm going to stop now and I'll do my last two days in Hawaii at a later time when my creative juices are flowing a little more abundantly and can compensate for some of the "travel logness"... Although really, if that's the requisite for blogging about the rest of the Hawaii trip, you may never get the last two days :).

5K

2009-03-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this on the blog before but a while ago Debbie and I talked each other into training for a half marathon. We are not really sure how it happened but next thing we knew we were buying a book on marathon training which Debbie committed to read for the two of us. After a few days of reading the book, Debbie got all sorts of inspired and convinced me to that we should do a full marathon... You have to understand that Debbie and I are not runners nor are we particularly athletic (Debbie did play basketball in high school but it's been a while and I've never really done anything of the athletic variety). But we figured it could we should try and we started training...

So, as part of the training you end up running a number of different races (5K, 10K, Half Marathon, and then the Marathon). We've been meaning to do the Rex Lee Run for years but never got around to it until now... Debbie and I are a few week off on our training and I was scheduled to run my 5K last week and Debbie was scheduled to run her 5K next week but the Rex Lee Run was today so we ran it today. This was our first race EVER and we were pretty excited about it which, of course, means we had to document it. So here are a few pictures of our race day.

We were supposed to be at the track by 8:45 am today (half our before the cannon was scheduled to go off for the 5K) so I stopped by Debbie's around 8:15 to pick her up and get our numbers pinned on our shirts and our chips attached to our shoes. One of the ties that came with Debbie's chip wasn't working very well so it took us a while to get her chip attached but here we are pre-race working on getting the chip on her shoe.

Here we are at the track waiting for the race to begin. We were late getting there (good thing we weren't running the 10K that started at 9:00 am) but it was probably good because we would have frozen had we stood outside longer than we had too (we did freeze but it would have been worse had we been there longer). Today was a beautiful day, the nicest we've had in a LONG time, but it was cold this morning...

This is a shot of me doing my last 100 meters... (I'm the one that you can't really see).

And here's Debbie doing her last 100 meters. She's the one with the long ponytail.

And Debbie post-race pretending to be completely worn out which she wasn't at all :).

Finished!

We didn't get our results from the race until later in the day but it turns out that I came in 9th out of 162 for our age group (25-29) and ran the 5K in 25:14.04 mins and Debbie ran the 5K in 32:42.59 mins. We thought we did pretty well for our first race! :)

The Rex Lee Run is a run for cancer so Debbie and I ran in honor of 2 cancer survivors we love and admire. I ran for my mother-in-law who was diagnosed with and underwent treatment for breast cancer in 2004. Debbie ran for my sister-in-law who was diagnosed with and underwent treatment for breast cancer in 2007.

And here's a picture of our one fan (and photographer).

Counseling Psychology represented!

Laurie and Kristina are both first years in our program who also participated in the Rex Lee Run (they ran the 10k instead of the 5K).

So anyway, there it is... we successfully completed our first race! :)

Happy Birthday Debbie!!!

2009-02-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

Friday was my Debbie's 25th birthday - yep, Debbie is now a quarter of a century old - so we celebrated. We took Debbie to the Bombay House (Debbie's favorite restaurant in Provo) and then went back to Debbie's house and did cake and ice cream in the form of an ice cream cake.

Four generations of women at the Bombay house. My grandma and my mom got into town last Sunday so they got to celebrate with us.

Debbie with her Bombay House birthday mango ice cream. Dani was REALLY excited about Debbie's ice cream and couldn't wait to get some :).

And back at Debbie's house for cake (chocolate, of course, since that is Debbie's favorite). We also had brigadeiros and beijinhos (Brazilian birthday treats) that Debbie made. My grandma got Debs the tulips that are on the table (also Debbie's favorite).

How cute are they? :)

And here's a happy birthday song in Portuguese for your enjoyment.

Happy birthday to Marie's Debbie too who was also born in February of 1984 and is also now a quarter of a century old! :) (Yep, we both have sisters named Debbie born in the same month in the same year, we also both have brothers named Sam and Richard (well, mine is a Ricardo which is the Portuguese version of Richard). Weird huh?)

Internship Updates...

2009-02-25T09:11:00.001-08:00

The results of the match came in Monday morning and...

Marie will be spending next year at CSU.

Quel will be spending next year at BYU.

We are both pleased with the results of the match and are looking forward to next year. We are also SOOOO glad this stupid process is over and are thankful we survived! Thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement throughout the process!

2009-02-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

The last couple weeks have blown by. It has been super busy with the classes I am teaching and at the counseling center. I'm struggling to juggle all my responsibilities there and not work more than I am supposed to (that is an important goal for me). I have a very full client load and we just got done with our Depression Screening Day. I was in charge of organizing, preparing, and executing it. It is a super cool outreach activity, but it took a ton of work. I think it went very well for the students who participated, but there were some really frustrating things about it to. Below is a picture of one of our little tables that we set up with fliers, information, and the screening measures. It was really fun to work the other interns on the project.

Last weekend, I went with a couple friends (Bambi and Liz) to Honolulu to go to a Liz's brother's new restaurant. We got to be part of a practice lunch they were doing. It was very fun and the restaurant is great. That same morning we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay and then to Ala Moana beach in the afternoon. It was a full day of fun, even if the weather was fickle. The picture above is of Bambi and me at Ala Moana beach. Below is a picture of the beach from where we were sitting and the next one is Liz waving from the water.

President's Day brought a welcome 3-day weekend. We decided that it was important to celebrate the holiday and the day off so we planned a Monday full of activities. Monday morning, Bambi and I hiked Hau'ula Loop trail. It was a nice, fairly short, hike that has a beautiful view of the ocean from within the mountains. Here are some pictures from our hike.

One of my favorite beaches here is Waimea beach. It is along the north shore and is always pretty popular. We went there on Monday and then again this past Saturday. The waves can get big but the water is beautiful and fun to play in. I wish the pictures could capture the size and power of the waves coming in, but they just don't!

These shots (above and below) are taken from the beach, looking into Waimea Valley. It is a beautiful blend of blues and greens, especially when the clouds flit playfully across the brillant azure sky.
Yesterday, we were all feeling pretty goofey and decided to see how far we could walk, standing on top of each other, toward the shore before the waves knocked us over. Below are some shots of our attemps. Steph is standing, with Vickie's help, on my shoulders as we struggled to stay upright while the waves rolled in... good times and a lot of laughs! :)

Here are just a few other pictures of us hanging-out at the beach.

This week should be a fairly normal work week. I will find out Monday morning where I have been matched for internship. I've been trying not to think about it too much or get too worked up about it, but I will let everyone know when I find out where I will be spending the next year of my life!
Time feels like it is slipping by too quickly now. I have visitors coming out soon! My parents and my sister Marissa will be coming out in a few weeks and then Quel will be here at the end of March. I just extended my ticket home from April 21st to May 2nd...trying to soak up as much Hawaiian fun as I can before I have to leave!

Match Day

2009-02-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

Friday morning at 6:30 am Utah time (so 3:30 am Hawaii time) we received and e-mail from National Matching Services (I think that's what they are called) informing us whether or not we had matched for internship. Marie wasn't all that stressed out about the matching process but I was freaking out. See, here's the thing, statistically speaking you have the highest chance of matching if you apply to 12 sites and don't limit yourself geographically. I applied to half that many sites and limited myself geographically. So overall, the odds were against me. I don't think I'd EVER been so anxious about anything in my life! I REALLY wanted to match and the chance of not matching felt very real to me. I didn't sleep at all Thursday night (well, that's not completely true I slept from 12:00 am to 1:30 am and then from 3:30 am to 5:00 am) and ate a bunch of junk food for comfort! So anyway, the e-mail was scheduled to come in was at 8:00 am Utah time, luckily it came in earlier or I might have started having panic attacks. The news was good... I matched and so did Marie. I waited until 8:00 am Utah time (yep, 5:00 am Hawaii time) to text Marie to let her know I'd matched and confirm that she had too. It's a good thing Marie loves me enough not to block my number on her phone after 5:00 am wake up texts (I have a tendency to forget the whole time difference thing, although Friday's text was deliberate despite the hour). I'm thrilled and extremely relieved (massive understatements) that I matched! We won't know until Monday where we are going but we know we are going...

So, Friday night Ose came down to Provo with his friend Nicole and helped Debbie move some stuff in his truck. So, we took advantage of the fact that Ose was in P-town and chilled and celebrated matching Cabral style. I had e-mailed my mom a few days before to find out how she made fondue and what types of cheeses she used and we decided to chill/celebrate by making fondue. It had been years since we'd had fondue and it was lots of fun to make (none of us "kids" had ever made fondue) and it was REALLY tasty.

Ose stopped at the State Liquor Store (the only place we know of in Provo to get anything which higher alcohol content than beer or cooking wine) and Debbie and I went to the store for the cheeses (Gruyere, Fontina, and Emmentaler) and bread. When we lived in Quito we'd go to this place called "El Espanol" to purchase our fondue cheeses and they would shred the cheese for you. The grocery store here, however, won't do that for you because apparently "the soft cheeses ruin their blades." So, we gathered all the cheese graters we could find at my house and Debbie's and did the grating ourselves. Ose cut the bread and worked up a sweat doing it but blamed it on the fact that Debbie keeps her house too hot and I melted the cheese over the stove and thought the temperature of the house was just right :). So, here are the pictures of our "Fondue Night:"

The "Ose the drunk" picture.

The "Ose with a knife" picture.

The "Debbie helped Ose figure out how to properly use a knife to cut bread" picture.

The "Ose looking pleasant while posing with Quel by the stove as Quel melts the cheese in the wine" picture.

The "Cheese, wine, and fondue pot" picture

And finally, the "Three beautiful women with Ose as photographer" picture.

A week of cultural experiences

2009-02-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is the Byodo-In Temple. It is situated in a place called Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. I initially wanted to go see this place to see if the temple was like the ones I've seen in Cambodia. It isn't much like the Buddhist temples in Cambodia, although it is a Buddhist temple. This temple was built in 1968 as a way of commemorating the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. It is a replica of an ancient temple that stands in Uji, Japan. This temple was built entirely without nails and is meant to represent the mythical phoenix.

This is the bon-sho (sacred bell) in its Bell House. The bell is made of brass and measures 5 feet high and 3 tons. The resonant sound of the bell is meant to create an atmosphere of tranquility conducive to meditation. It really was relaxing to feel the deep vibrations of the bell echo throughout the temple grounds. Typically people would strike the bell with the wooden log before entering the temple as a representation of spreading the eternal teachings of Buddha.

Tuesday was a good day for Steph and me to come to the Valley of the Temples because it was kind of rainy and cold (not appropriate for other water activities we had in mind!). The memorial park and the temple grounds were beautiful and very peaceful.

On Friday night, we had another game night. These are a few of our friends that came (several others had left earlier in the evening). Steph hosted it at her house and it was a blast!! We played Cranium, mafia, murder in the dark, psychiatrist, and the sign game. It was really fun and our cheeks hurt from laughing so much! We will probably plan another one soon because every week we get multiple requests to do it again.

No game night (or any activity for that matter) is truly complete without a good pyramid! :) Although our photographer had a bit of difficulty capturing the beauty and form of our magnificent structure in its entirety!

With brains a little fried and feeling a bit punch-drunk, all members of our game-night team headed happily home well after midnight!

This is my friend Manu who works at the counseling center with me. She is a Master's level intern in Social Work. She is amazing! She is awesome to talk to and we just laugh and have a ton of fun. She is from Hawaii and knows about everything cool here. I was fortunate enough to be invited to go with her and her family to a carnival this weekend. This was not just any carnival. This was the Punahou School Carnival! It is an annual event and one that is a very special tradition for them. No matter where they are living, her children try to get back each year to attend the carnival together. Manu and some of her children attended Punahou school and the carnival is a way for students to give back to their community.

We met lots of their friends and classmates there. The carnival was huge! There were booths for games and food. There were rides and a store to buy Punahou appearal and donated items. The food was fantastic! Another point of interest about this carnival and the school is that this is where President Obama went to school. He graduated from Punahou school in 1979 and worked at this carnival for years. I met several of his classmates while I was there.

This is us riding the Fireball, a ride that takes you a round a big ring so you are haning upside down and screaming as you feel all the blood rush to your head! Not sure why we get such a thrill out of things like that, but it was great! I had a great time at the carnival and with Manu's family. I was especially grateful to be included in something that was so special to them.

I didn't get any good pictures of this, but last night when I returned from the carnival I got to participate in BYU-Hawaii's Food Fest. All the clubs make food and sell it to raise club funds. It was really cool to see all their booths and the different types of food from all over the world. It is a big deal here and there were hundreds of people there. I, of course, visited the Cambodian club and saw some friends I haven't seen since I was there on my mission. It was a fun full night.

Things are still going well at the counseling center and in my classes. I have a full case load right now and some very challenging clients that are keeping me busy. I turned in my rankings for internship this week and am now just waiting to find out where this next phase of life takes me. We will know where we are matched for internship on February 23rd. Oh, other random news...I am speaking in church today and teaching the gospel doctrine lesson. I'm exciting to be teaching but hopefully the members of my ward won't get too sick of hearing from me! Other than that the week ahead looks good...still hoping for good weather durning the week (instead of just on the weekends) and looking forward to the President's Day holiday that is coming up. We are trying to plan a camping trip. So the work and play continues as my time slowly runs out.

Fun vs. Nature

2009-02-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Another week just flew by! Things have been crazy at work...my client load is getting pretty full and I'm starting to recognize more of the challenges and problems (maybe even obstacles) we have as a counseling center here. I love the people I'm working with and wish all of you could meet them. There are a lot of really fun things about working here and the people are definitely at the top of that list.
So I had some big plans to get out and do some exploring and go hiking and lots of other things this week, but the weather did not agree. It was really rainy and cold...just yucky really...all week, until friday. This weekend has been beautiful, and yesterday I was able to spend most of the day at a place called Waimea beach. It is gorgeous and the waves are really big. I went with Vickie and we hung-out on the beach and did some boogie boarding and some body surfing. I had a very good taste of how powerful the waves are here. I'm always really careful because I know how dangerous it can be. However, the waves yesterday were perfect! Big enough to shoot you, at break-neck speed, up onto the shore if you caught them right, and only occasionally get pummled by them. There were a couple times I got smashed into the sand and had a thorough salt water cleaning of my sinuses! :) All in all we had a really great time and got some sunshine. That made for a fun and relaxing day.
Last night, I drove into town...to Honolulu...with some friends. We hit Wal-mart, had dinner, and went to see Australia at the dollar theatre. I was really fun and I loved the movie! It was long, but I would definitely recommend it to those who haven't see it yet.
The pictures above and below were taken as the evening sun sunk behind the mountain. We caught these last beautiful rays as we drove along the coast toward Honolulu. You get some pretty amazing scenes with the ocean crashing in a few feet away on one side and the majestic peaks rising up immediately on the other. Wish a picture could capture it, but they all pale in comparison to the real thing.
This week should be busy and full again...especially if the weather stays nice. Hopefully, I'll get to do some hiking and explore a place called Goat Island, as well as hit a couple of basketball games. The big deadline this week is internship rankings. I have to have my sites ranked and submitted to the people that do the internship matches. Then it is all out of our hands and we don't hear where we are matched until the end of the month (February 23rd I think). A little nerve-racking! Hopefully, this week will bring more adventures, stories, and good pictures! :)

The Adventures Continue

2009-01-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

This is my friend Kristen. We are standing at a place called Pali Lookout that overlooks the city of Kailua and some other cities right on the coast. It is too dark to see in this picture, but the lights of the city were beautiful behind us. You can see all the way out into the bay and up the coastline. It is an awesome sight! Kristen is also the courageous one who took me out surfing, with some of her friends, on Monday! It was a blast! I mostly came back with alot of scrapes, bumps, and bruises, but we had a great time and I'm getting a little bit better.
On Friday, we had a retreat for the Counseling Center staff. This is Leilani. She is in charge off all the special needs resources in the center. She's hillarious! We had a lot of fun in the car as we drove to and from Waikiki to go to the aquarium and to lunch, before we had our training/planning meeting. The aquarium was awesome! It had a lot of animals and information, but it wasn't a huge aquarium. My favorite part was this gigantic cylindrical tank full of moonjelly jellyfish. They were in dark corner and you could see the light glowing off of their gelatin bodies. You could stand right next to the tank and it almost felt like you were in the water with them (without the fear of getting stung! :) ). It was really cool. It was also fun to see creatures that I saw for the first time last summer while snorkeling in the Philippines, when David and Annette Wells and their family and I joined Grant and Susan's family on a boat trip there. It was weird to think that my first experience with many of these animals had been in the water a few feet away from them! Pretty cool!
The weather was beautiful and windy Saturday morning, as we joined our Elders' Quorum for an activity in the park by Kekela beach. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and enjoyed the sun. The sand on this beach was really fine and soft. That made it really nice to walk on and play in but when the wind picked up the fine granules swirled in the air sandblasting anything or anyone in their path! :)
This is Vickie. She is a friend from the ward. She's really funny and fun to talk to.
This is the view from Kekela beach. The waves are much smaller and gentler here than the waves along the north shore, partially due to a large stretch of reef several hundred feet off-shore. It is a peaceful and lazy place to play along the shore or in the water. This same afternoon, I went up to Waimea beach with my friend, Steph. Waimea is a large beach up on the north shore. The waves were huge and the view is beautiful. My friend Teresa (who lived here for a few years) told me Waimea was her favorite beach to go to when whe lived here. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm sure we will be going back there soon.
This was a busy week that really flew by, but I had a lot of fun with new friends. It has been great to find some "real" friends and connect with them in meaningful ways.
Oh, I also was given two callings in the ward this past week. They asked me to be the activities committee co-chair (this is new for me but ought to be fun) and a sunday school teacher for our gospel doctrine class (woohoo! this would be the calling I'd choose if I got to pick). I'm excited to makes some waves and meet some new people! :)
This week is super full and busy at work, and I have some hikes and other activities planned with my friend Steph. So hopefully, it will be full of adventures and fun!

Settling in

2009-01-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

This week has been a total whirlwind! So many things have happened. Let's start with the best news...I'm officially done with internship interviews! Woohoo!! I did my last one on friday. So now I have to figure out how I am going to rank the sites I interviewed with. Rankings are supposed to be submitted in early february and then we get matched later that month...I think. I'm not positive on the exacty dates (probably should figure that out, eh? :) ). Anyway, so I kind of just wait to see what (and where) next year will bring. Now that interviews are done, I need to get focused back on dissertation stuff. I'm hoping to complete it and defend during the spring when I am back in Provo taking my last class. So that's the word on the school pressures.

As far as work at BYU-H, things are going much much better. I am really busy, but it is very familiar and settling to have clients again. I never have two clients in a row that are from the same place, have the same cultural background, or even speak the same native tongue. That has been fascinating and really challenging. It makes appropriately administering and interpreting assessments pretty tricky. The classes I am teaching are great. I totally love teaching! I've been learning a lot of new things as the sole teacher and the only one responsible to make sure we cover everything, get grades in, and influence the kind of experience my students have in class. I can totally see more teaching, of some sort, in the future.

Ok, now for the fun activities of the week! I was in charge of the activity at Family Home Evening, for our ward, on monday night. So I decided that they needed to learn to play dip-dip-dip. A classic game that everyone should know (and love!). It was hilarious to watch everyone play! Different levels of understanding, competitiveness, and humor made for some interesting dynamics. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though. Then tuesday was basketball. We had a ton of people but it ended up being pretty good ball (well...you know...as far as church ball goes) and fun. Wednesday we had a game night at my place with 7 or 8 friends from the ward. That went well and people just stayed around and talked for several hours...everyone probably took off a little after 11pm. Thursday was Institute (which is good and frustrating...more on that later...maybe). Then Friday hung out with a friend from the ward. We were planning to have a movie night, but we never got to the movie. Just spent several hours "talking story" as she like to call it. Then Saturday, I headed to the swap meet with a couple people. I had actually never been to a swap meet before. This place was about an hour away from Laie and it reminded me of the markets in Cambodia...only cleaner and more expensive. But it was a really fun place! And I bought a cool Hawaii visor for $5. Can't beat that! So we just spent a lot of time driving that morning. The weather was fantastic and the drive along the coast was gorgeous! It was a perfect day to just get to know some different parts of the island. When we got back into town, I went to the women's and men's basketball games. They both won and played really well (games worth watching).
Then this morning, we had a breakfast. Our ward doesn't meet until 2pm so we have a lot of time in the morning. About 6 of us gathered at my apartment and I introduced them to the deliciousness of Norweigan pancakes (I highly recommend them to those of you who have never had them), and our friend Sina made a corned-beef hash with tomatoes to put over rice. It was an excellent breakfast (if I do say so myself! :) ) and we just hung-out and talked for a few hours. It was really fun! We swapped stories about our favorite games (such as mafia, ulitimate red-light green-light, and smash 'em!), accidents and injuries we've had, music interests, hobbies, and anything else that came to our minds! I have met some pretty cool people here so far. Her are some more pictures of our breakfast activity (and my little studio apartment).

This has been a very exciting week for me because I have been learning so much and have had many opportunities to do fun new things. I'm grateful to be making some interesting and good friends. Next week we have a holiday (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and a training retreat for the counseling center. So it promises to be a busy week, but I'm feeling a lot more adjusted and happy to be here. I'm even going to (hopefully...cross your fingers for me) start working on my surfing skills tomorrow morning, with a new friend who has graciously agreed to help me learn (she probably has no idea what she is getting herself into!)!
Thanks for all your interest, love, and support! It is great to hear what is going on in your lives, so anytime you have a minute give me a call or send an email. I hope things are going well for you too!

Childhood Friends...

2009-01-16T21:41:00.000-08:00

Luiza and I met when we were in Ms. Nellie Green's ESL class. Although I only vaguely remember meeting Luiza in the first grade, she always reminds me that when she first moved to Academia Cotopaxi (the international school we both attended) she didn't speak English so she would ask me (in Portuguese) to ask Ms. Nellie if she could go to the bathroom (in English). So, Luiza and I met in the first grade and remained friends through out high school (we both did pretty much ALL of our schooling at Cotopaxi which is REALLY unusual for people attending international schools). After graduating from high school Luiza went to college in Boston and I went to college in Idaho. I couldn't find a picture of us in the first grade but here's one of us when we were in the 3rd grade.

On Thursday I got an e-mail from Luiza, who now lives in LA and works for a company that produces movies, letting me know that she was going to be in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival and was wondering if there was any chance that I'd be able to make it out to Park City during the short time she'd be there. I could not pass up the chance to get together, so tonight I drove up to Park City and we went out to dinner. SO FUN!!!! You'd think the last time we'd seen each other was last weekend! We had a great time catching up on each other's lives and updating each other on what we knew about some of the other people we went to school with (not gossiping... just catching up... honestly we were just catching up).

Finally some fun in the sun

2009-01-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

So Friday was the most beautiful day we've had since I have arrived here. I was only at work, on campus, for a little while, and the sunshine and warmth was a clear invitation to finally get down to the beach. On Friday, I went to a beach that is right here in Laie, called Hukilau Beach. There were quite a few people there playing in the waves and just hanging out on the beach. I mostly spent my time relaxing, reading, and soaking up the sun. There's nothing quite as soothing as feeling the breeze off the ocean, smelling the salty air, and taking in the warmth of the afternoon sun on your skin. Even the smell of sunscreen can't be replaced! Everyone said that the nice weather wouldn't last through Saturday. So when I woke up and saw the bright rays of sunshine through my window I knew I needed to get down the beach before the clouds rolled in and hid the sun again. So I went to a beach down the road called Castle beach. Lots of surfers like this beach. There are cool areas out off-shore that have waves breaking in lots of different directions. It was fun to watch the surfers popping up out of the water and gliding different directions with the waves curling at their heels. It was a great place to do some boogie boarding, which I happily did for a couple of hours. It was beautiful and warm. Then as predicted, the sky grew dark and the clouds demanded their turn in the sky.

Here are a few more pictures of campus. This is the main road going into campus...the only road actually. As you drive in you see about 60 or so flag poles proudly displaying the flags of many of the nations that the students here call home. It is a pretty cool sight and represents and even cooler multicultural dynamic on campus. A friend here told me that BYU-Hawaii is currently recognized as the most diverse university in the United States (haven't seen any solid statistics, but that's pretty amazing!).

So in general, the weekend was productive and fun (figured out laundry, advertised some more for a roommate, and got a promise that a shower rod will arrive by Monday!). However, Sunday has been really hard. I was very homesick today. Sunday always leaves alot of time, free from too many distractions and responsibilities, to think about things. I miss everyone alot and am still in the process of getting settled and trying to remember why it was I decided to come out here alone. I have met some really cool people already and tonight I had dinner with a really good family friend and her family. That was really fun and I felt very welcome and loved AND it still hurts to be away from the people I care so much about. I hope all of you do still feel how much I think about and love you. Thanks for being an important part of my life and for caring about me.

Color Me Mine

2009-01-11T20:53:00.000-08:00

Saturday afternoon Debbie, Dani, and I decided to go over to Borders (Dani's all time favorite store) to purchase a book on marathon training that Debbie had seen the day before. Yes, a book on marathon training... Debbie and I are shooting for a half marathon this summer. This will be interesting since neither one of us are really runners but... :). Anyway, while we were over at the Riverwoods we decided to go over to Color Me Mine and get our creative juices flowing or if you are me get the OCD going... So here are some shots of our afternoon at Color Me Mine...

Debbie picked out a little lady bug ceramic box for her and Dani to work on. Dani really enjoyed it and did surprisingly well. We had to remind her a few times that putting paint on the brush and then soaking the brush in water kind of defeats the purpose. There were also a few times when we had to get new paint after Dani experimented with mixing the colors on the pallet. Debbie is incredibly patient and, lucky for her, the OCD doesn't seem to run as deep for her as it does for me :).

Debbie worked on the details of the lady bug while I distracted Dani with the more basic elements of the piece.

Most of us like to work with one brush at a time but Dani decided to be innovative and discovered that you can do the work in half the time if you have on brush in each hand.

Of course working on the same basic elements of a piece gets boring after a while so she decided to try a more interesting and challenging technique with a sponge on the table.

Check out the amount of concentration that goes into initialing the bottom of the piece. I love her face in this picture, this is SERIOUS work! So anyway, the pieces we worked on will be ready on Wednesday. If I remember I'll take some pictures so you can see the final products...

A whole new world

2009-01-07T18:49:00.001-08:00

He's my little green car. Very grateful I have it!

My apartment building...mine's the one straight ahead.

The view from my front door. Isn't it majestic...well, minus the cars.

Hello friends...I have survived another crazy day. I taught my first class (Psych 11) this morning. I went really well. I think that I will really enjoy teaching if I can keep up with my own reading assignments! :) So today's new shock to deal with was finding out for the first time that I have another class to teach...that it starts tomorrow morning and I have no book or syllabus. Evidently, I'm supposed to be teaching a student development class. So I will be teaching every morning at 7:30am (ugh...so much for sleeping in ever). Fortunately, I found the right book and an old syllabus and put something together so I can look competent for the kids tomorrow! That's what it's all about right? As long as you look competent you are! I do think this class will be fun to teach if I can get some lesson plans together. So after dealing with that crisis, I had my first client. I will be doing some assessments for this client, which are probably one of my least favorite things to do but this is also one of the reasons I wanted to do this clerkship. I knew I would be forced to get some good assessment experience. So I will administer my first assessment tomorrow afternoon.

I got to go watch both the men's and women's teams play last night. It was fun. Pretty well coached teams and very fast-paced styles. One of the women who works in our office has a daughter on the team. It was fun to sit with her and her family.

Here are some shots of the campus. The building in the picture immediately below is the building where my office is...in the Student Development Center.

Ok, a couple of random things about the weather here....it reminds me of Cambodia alot (although it is a bit colder than Cambodia). It is pretty humid...so much that any paper here seems wet. Toilet paper and tissues always feel a little damp (and stick to your shoes more readily if you don't watch out!), cardboard boxes get all soft and mushed, and any hope of your hair staying straight and manageable fly away. The other crazy thing, that I actually really love, is that the weather can significantly change in less than a minute. One moment is pretty sunny and clear and the next it is pouring rain...not just sprinkling, total downpour and you see all these students running frantically for cover! Ha ha! It is so fun. Like today, I went to walk someplace on campus to take care of getting access to my classrooms and when I left it was really nice out. Before I got to my destination (about 150 yards away) the storm began. I was dripping before I entered the building. So then as I came back I got even more drenched and my supervisor asked, "Is it raining? Why didn't you take an umbrella?"... "I didn't know it was going to rain when I left like five minutes ago!" Anyway, so it is kind of fun...even if you do get a bit wet and cold.

Here's a little glimpse of my office. It's not big but it has plenty of room to do testing and meet with clients and work. My couch even has a cushion!

I had an interview with the University of Utah this morning, which went much better than I had expected. Still have a few more to do, but it feels like the worst is over. It will be a day worth celebrating when all of that is done. It has been an incredibly long week already but at least I feel like I have accomplished a lot and am getting more adjusted to being here. I am definitely looking forward to doing something fun this weekend...if I can make it through the remainder of the week! :)

Piece by piece

2009-01-07T01:09:00.000-08:00

Aloha everyone! Sorry I don't have any pictures for this blog...I know those are what make the blog most fun to look at. However, I have barely had time and space to breathe this week so pictures will have to be in the next blog! :) So this week has been an experience in putting the pieces together. There are so many little things to take care of and think about that if feels overwhelming, but the puzzle is slowly starting to take shape.
Ok, here is the update for all of you who are on the edge of your seats (haha!). I started taking care of stuff on campus starting at 8am monday morning. I have met everyone in our office and they are fantastic! I can't wait to get to know them better. Everyone just loves to laugh and play... a perfect environment for me! I have had about a million and one things to get done to actually get hire and get all the little details settled. I am now officially hired which is good news since school starts tomorrow and I am teaching my first class at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
I am teaching a general psychology (Psych 111) class. I was supposed to have the textbook a few months ago, but having never received it I have been frantically throwing a syllabus together. Thankfully, I've had some help from the student who worked here before me (Thanks Russ!). I think I will really like teaching. The class is only an hour long... and how fiercesome can freshman be at that hour of the morning? I will be lucky if they are even awake!
The most stressful thing complicating my already high-stressed adjustment are my internship interviews. I have done 4 in the last two days (5 1/2 hours of them! ugh!). I am really glad they are over and they have been going really well. At least much better than I expected. I even had one today that I actually enjoyed (that is so sick, but it's true!)! Fortunately, I have been learning alot about myself and what I want in my internship as these interviews have gone on. I have 5 more to do, and needless to say that light at the end of the tunnel is a very welcome sight!
In less "professional" areanas...I am no longer homeless. I have moved into the studio apartment and still need to find a roommate but I'm actually enjoying being here by myself for right now. The process of figuring out housing was a total mess and if you want to know the whole story I might tell you if you ask...depending on my mood! :) Anyway, so the apartment is fine minus a few kind of annoying things, like no shower rod or curtain. Making due for now but that is something on the top of the shopping list along with salt and dish soap. The cost of food here is incredible! I've been working on choosing the most nutritionally dense things to spend money on...maybe I will get used to it? and maybe it won't seem as bad once I actually have an income? who knows...I'll keep you updated on that fascinating portion of my life! :) The one advantage to missing important and simple things like a shower curtain is that, as a dear friend of mine informed me, I can use it go gain a little empathy and compassion... "What do you want from me?! I don't even have a shower curtain!" That is about how things have felt with all the little details to be settled. People have been very understanding even if they aren't as pro-active or involved as might be helpful.
My ward also seems very good...time will tell, I suppose. The community culture here kind of eliminates some of the really irriating and difficult things I experience in the church culture in utah. Church culture here is not like it is there and I really like that so far. And we have a fitness coordinator person...she puts together activities to play sports together! What more important calling could exist?! :) We played basketball as a ward for the first time. It was really fun. I'm gonna be really sore probably but that is usually worth it. I never can understand though why co-ed groups of ward members think that they will have more fun or play better if they play full-court. That is never the case...never! Half-court basketball in those groups can be decent...or at least almost decent...but full-court is terrible! It can no long be called basketball really. Anyway, even with the breakdown of the game we still had alot of fun. And I even attended the byu-hawaii men's and women's basketball games tonight. A healthy dose of basketball never hurts!
I'm really grateful for all your support and encouragement. Things have been hard and area getting better, but I know there will still be ups and downs. So thank you for expressing your concern and offering your support, no matter the miles that separate us! It really does mean alot and is extremely appreciated. Ok...I promise to have pictures next time and hopefully something fun to report on! :)

The beginning of a new adventure

2009-01-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, well I am now in Hawaii. I arrived yesterday afternoon in the Honolulu airport. As we flew in and as I got off the plane it felt kind of like Cambodia with the green and the humidity, so it was weird to see houses that were actually pretty nice and more modern civilization. The drive from honolulu to laie is beautiful. Most of it is right along the coast.
My supervisor, Eric, picked me up from the airport. I had dinner with his family last night. They have 6 kids (they are all really cute and bright). I picked up my car and saw the places i might be staying. There is still some confusion about the housing situation, especially after all the flooding that happened here a few weeks ago. So I haven't been able to move in anywhere yet, but I think I will be renting a room from my friend's aunt and uncle. I will be living in their home which is much nicer than the studio apartment that I would otherwise be renting, although it will be a bit more expensive. Hopefully, I will get all of that settled in the next couple days.
On my way here, I was able to spend a day in California with a friend (Meagan) from my mission and her husband (Mario). We had a blast! I stayed with them and we went to the Universal Studio City Walk and to Hollywood. Mario also work for the LA police department and he showed me the areas of LA that he works in. It was really fun. Here are a few pictures from that adventure.

So this morning, I went for a walk around Laie. The campus is only a few minutes walk from where I will be living. Then I walked down to the beach. It was really windy and a bit overcast today but it was beautiful. It was refreshing to hear the waves and smell the salty air. I'm excited about being so close to the ocean here.

Here's the neighborhood near the school where I will be living. You can see how windy it is...I don't know enough to know if that is typical local weather or not.

BYU-Hawaii campus
It is super small... I love that!

And here is the beach just on the other side of the highway.

So I have lots of hiring paperwork to get done tomorrow and the first of several internship interviews start as well. Wish me luck 'cause I'm going to need it!

Sam's Last Day in Provo

2008-12-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

We've been busy really busy with Christmas stuff this last week so since Saturday was Sam's last full day in Provo we decided to PACK the day with activities. We were supposed to go skiing and snowboarding with Ose and Chris but after spending a day in Park City and freezing to death Sam decided that he didn't want to pay $100.00 to freeze and spend the day on his butt. Plus, Debbie wasn't going to be able to join us either so we did everything we could possibly imagine doing in Provo. Here's how the day went...

11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.- Lunch at Debbie's (Christmas leftovers)

1:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. - Ice Skating at Seven Peaks

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. - Sledding at Rock Canyon

4:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. - BYU Creamery

4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. - Bowling at BYU

6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. - Chillin' at Debbie's

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. - Dinner at Bombay House

9:00 p.m. to Midnight - Cranium Tournament

I think we made up for the "boring days," don't you? :)

We had a blast ice skating... well, all of us except for Dani, she HATED it. She stayed on the ice for about 5 mins and 4 of those were spent with all of us standing around her trying to convince her that she wasn't going to die, that we would hold her hands and someone would hold her from behind but she wanted NOTHING to do with it. :(

I think Debbie and I were the only ones that had ever been sledding or "tobogganing" as Sam's Canadian girlfriend would say :). Bruno and I were the first to go down. He really enjoyed it but after a few trips down the hill we ended up heading straight for a pole - not intentionally - which was padded but he didn't know, so he turned really sharp to keep me from hitting to pole straight on, got a ton of snow in his shoe, and hit his arm :(. Way to be a gentlemen and take a hit for me!

Sam also ended up injured...

See the blood on his tongue? Here's what happened. After a few runs on the smaller hills Sam decided to go on the big hill. On the second run down the big hill he hit a bump as he reached the bottom that was sufficiently intense to make his cap fly off his head and he bit his tongue. So he concluded that when you go sledding you should scream with your mouth closed like this...

Instead of with your mouth open like this...

Sam and Renan after "conquering" the hills. (If you look closely you can see Viv and Bruno in my car in the background warming up).

So we stopped at the Creamery after sledding to warm up and discovered that the Creamery has this insanely good hot cocoa float type drink. You pick and ice cream flavor and then they top it off with hot cocoa... YUM!!!! See the satisfied look in Dani's face as she savors the "Chocolate Creme" as it is called.

Sam managed to get 4 strikes in a row while bowling (we were hoping he would get 200+ points and win a t-shirt but that didn't happen). He came in first with 139 points, I came in second with 117, Moises third with 109.

Viv left right as we were wrapping things up and we needed a group picture so we handed Dani the camera... :). We had the camera zoomed in for the first shot so we framed it as well as she could but couldn't get everyone in the shot but did a fine job with the second shot. Given the contrast between her ice skating skills and her photography skills, we decided that this 3 year old has a little more proclivity towards "the arts."

Our creative table ordered mostly Chicken Tikka Massala at the Bombay House. Bruno's was REALLY spicy and the poor boy suffered more than he is used to suffering at dinner time. The rest of us were quite pleased with our meals :).

This is what happens when a Ute comes in contact with BYU apparel :).

Park City Adventure

2008-12-26T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today we spent the day in Park City and froze our butts off!!!

Dani's about as thrilled to be out in the cold weather as the woman in the brown jacket behind her :).

As soon as we got indoors she was all smiles though :).

Viv's enjoying the shopping, Dani is enjoying being indoors... not so sure that Chris is enjoying either :).

Cousinly love :).

No comment :)

Stopping for a warm drink.

Sam being a great uncle... she was having a blast :).

Sam once again being a great uncle on the drive home and keeping her awake so that she wouldn't get a "nap" at 7:00 pm and be up until 12:00 am.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Here are a few highlights of our Christmas festivities...

Christmas Eve was spent at the Costa's house (Debbie's in-laws). Ose flew into SLC on Tuesday night, he'd been out of town for business. Viv (my mom's sister), Chris (my aunt's husband), Bruno (my cousin), and Renan (Bruno's best friend since he was 3 yrs old) came in on Christmas Eve. They flew in from Chicago and given all the flights that were cancelled and delayed because of the weather, it was surprising that their flight was only delayed an hour. Of course, that meant they didn't come in until close to midnight which meant we were all up until really late but that's traditional for a Brazilian Christmas anyway.

Christmas "morning," Ose made breakfast for everyone. Here are a few pictures of the boys making and eating breakfast and... being boys...

A good portion of the rest of the day was spent in the kitchen making dinner. Debs and I got a little carried away when we planned our menu which meant a lot of hours in the kitchen. I'm a true believer in dining out and probably spent more time in the kitchen yesterday than I have all year. Thank goodness for good company in the kitchen... Debs and I do have a fun time cooking :). And if I might say so myself, we did a fabulous job.

Debs also planned and coordinated a really cool Secret Santa. She found a website where everyone who is going to participate in the Secret Santa registers and then randomly gets assigned a name and then sent an e-mail with who their Secret Santa is...

So here's how our Secret Santa exchange went. We decided that I would start:

Quel: (Looks straight at Dani) A minha amiga secreta é muito linda... (My secret santa is very pretty). A minha amiga secreta é bem pequeninha... (My secret santa is very little). A minha amiga secreta é uma princesa... (My secret santa is a princess).

Dani: (Points to self) Mim? (Grammatically incorrect version of "me")

And, as the best aunt ever... I got her the Cinderella Laptop she had been eyeing (even after the tragic laptop incident from a few weeks ago...).

Then it was Dani's turn to give her secret santa the gift she'd bought. Dani comes and sits next to me by the Christmas tree...

Debbie: Dani quem é a tua amiga secreta? (Dani, who is your Secret Santa)

Dani smiles and points...

Quel: EU?!?!? (Grammatically correct version of "me")

Dani wanted to buy me a hat but Debbie and Dani didn't find one they really liked... so I got a Banana Republic gift card (my favorite store) instead and a BEAUTIFUL drawing from Dani. :)

Here are some other fun secret santa moments...

Chris got Viv and managed to keep it a surprise. Another one of those ME?!?!?! moments!

Bruno got Sam and gave him a gift that reinforced Sam's belief that he IS "The Man."

Viv got Dan, I found out and convinced Viv to play a joke on Dan. Here's the story... Dan majored in History, his emphasis and passion is the Civil War. Those who know Dan know this about him (even those who don't know him very well). When people have to get Dan a gift they go to a bookstore and look for Civil War books. They pass by the bargain book section and find a book called "Strange and Fascinating Facts of the Civil War." Dan's gotten this book as a gift a good 4 or 5 times. People are always really excited to give it to him... Dan's always pretends to be really excited to receive it. Last Christmas I took the book off the bookshelf and wrapped it for Dan and stuck it under the Christmas tree (no worries, I put a gift card in it too). This Christmas, I took the book off the bookshelf and stuck it in a gift bag and had Viv give it to Dan: One Civil War book from the bookshelf $0; one gift back I found in the hall closet $0; Dan's expression as he opens the gift and thinks he's gotten the same gift for the 6th time... PRICELESS :)

Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself ... :)

So here's the summary:

I got Dani, Dani got me, Debbie got Bruno, Bruno got Sam, Sam got Moises, Moises got Ose, Ose got Debbie (there are no good pictures but Ose gave Debs a "big brother little sister date" and is taking Debs out to dinner and then to Body Worlds - she's been dying to go and was REALLY excited about her gift), Dan got Renan, Renan got Chris (and forgot Chris's gift in Chicago), Chris got Viv, and Viv got Dan.

And, of course, what's Christmas without a little Rock Band? :)

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!!!

Dani's World

2008-12-25T02:47:00.000-08:00

Dani was rummaging through my purse today (a fairly common occurrence) and found my sunglasses, decided to try them on (also a very common occurrence) and looked absolutely adorable in them (another very common occurrence). So, of course, I had to get the camera out and get a picture of her...

Cute huh? Anyway, while we had the camera out I decided to teach her how to take pictures. So,I pointed the camera towards Sam, held the camera in place, and showed Dani which button to push. She was so excited when it worked. Here's the result...

So then I decided to let her hold the camera and take a picture by herself and here's what we got...

A bit blurry and not completely centered but really quite good for her first picture ever. Then, of course, she decides to take pictures of everything around her. Here are the results...

My favorite thing about these pictures is getting a perspective of the world through Dani's eyes. I'm short and all but not quite as short as she is and it's interesting to see things from where she does...
Dani can't see the top of the Christmas tree if she doesn't look up.

The pot on the stove is at eye level.

I'm tall and Sam's a giant. (We were incredibly surprised at how centered this picture is and the fact that she didn't chop off Sam's head... the kid's a natural photographer).
Pretty close to the perspective you get when you are sitting down in the couches across the room... the difference is, she's standing.
She's clearly fond of the little snowmen on the mantel (yeah, they are snowmen).

And here's what mom looks like when she bends down to talk to Dani.

The other fun thing about these pictures, it's amazing how many bad pictures of us I'm not only unwilling to delete, but will post online just because they were the first pictures Dani's ever taken... :)

Christmas Break

2008-12-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah... it's been a while. Marie and I have had an incredibly busy semester. I've been working at BYU's Counseling Center and at Mountainlands Community Health Center. Marie's been working with the county doing substance abuse work. On top of work both of us have been working on internship applications.... a horrible process that we've absolutely detested but a necessary evil I guess. We've also been working on our dissertations... yeah, that's been slow process that we've both been avoiding but we are moving along. I finished a draft of my results section and only had the discussion section to write up when Tim and I discovered we had made a mistake when we ran our analyses originally and we had to redo all sorts of stuff... yeah, because doing it once wasn't bad enough. So anyway, we are back on break for a little while which means it's time to blog again...

Sam arrived on Saturday to spend Christmas break with us. Sam lives in Miami where it is nice and warm... here in Provo it hasn't been so nice and warm. It started snowing last week and has pretty much been snowing non-stop. It's been really bad since Friday and we got SEVERAL inches of snow today. So today we decided to make snowmen... If we are going to be completely honest, Debbie and Sam decided to make a snowman while I was out driving in the miserable snow and waiting in horrible lines to get us food for Christmas. I was going to down play how horrible my morning was but Debbie is sitting next to me and decided that if we are going to be COMPLETELY honest I should tell it like it is :). Anyway, I did finally join the festivities and helped put the head on snowman #2 and helped decorate both snowmen. I also instigated a bit of a snowball fight which resulted in Sam tackling both Debbie and I into the pile of snow in the neighbor's yard... but don't worry cause we shoved snow up his face while we were on the ground. So here are few pictures of our snowy day.

For those of you who like to say that I have a bit of a mischievous look... I'll give it to you, I don't exactly look angelic in this picture.

Dani, however, does look completely angelic holding her little baby snowman… can you get any cuter?

And here we are shaping the bottom of the snowman - he was a little too skinny and we decided he needed a bit more padding.

And here are our masterpieces... The one of the right with the red scarf (I'm clarifying that the one of the right has the red scarf because, for those of you who don't know, I'm less than reliable in terms of knowing which is right and which is left) was the first snowman. The second snowman is prettier, we know. I should also point out that these were the first snowmen any of us had EVER made. Yeah, we're foreign.

Not bad huh? Notice how the scarfs match the eyes. Yeah, scroll back up, the red scarfed snowman has red eyes and in all honestly, we didn't plan that... it just happened :).

She doesn't look miserable at all does she? Yeah, she was ready to get back inside the house... it was cold.

So for living where it never even gets close to being as cold as it has been here, Sam's actually surviving the cold quite well. We can't say the same for his glove though. Sam brought a pair of leather gloves which he wears with a black coat and sunglasses (he doesn't look like a mobster at all). Needless to say, leather gloves were not exactly made to play in the snow. They were completely soaked and not exactly helpful in keeping his hands warm and dry. So after freezing his hands while making the first snowman, Sam had a moment of absolute genius and decided to wear rubber cleaning gloves underneath his leather gloves for the second snowman. For the record... they don't help at all :).

And a shot from further away so you can get a feel for the size of the snowmen compared to the house. Hope you guys are enjoying the weather wherever it is you are.

A day at the Cabral's

2008-08-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today I spent the day at my parents house at a BBQ with family and friends - Marie had to work and had a friend coming in from out of town or you can bet she would have been there :). I pretty much spent the entire day eating and consumed more food in one day than any individual probably should in a single day but there was a lot of food there and I had to try some of everything. OK, so I did much more than just "try" each thing; it's probably more accurate to say that I tried each thing and then decided it was good enough for seconds or thirds or...

Debbie prepared all sorts of salads, side dishes, and desserts for the BBQ - each one better than the other.

Ose and Moises grilled the meat (I think we had 2 different types of sausage, 2 or 3 different types of steak, chicken, and shrimp). As seen in the picture above, the best pieces of steak never made it inside for everyone to try but I guess we weren't the ones slaving over the grill so we didn't "deserve" them as much. Of course, those of us who found out their little secret ended up spending more time outside by the grill but only to keep the "grill masters" company.

Mom supervised and served as quality control for all the food and food preparation. And then... we got to eat...

Here's Ose's friend Katie enjoying the smörgåsbord.

The Cabral kids... you know, just being the Cabral kids :).

Dan and Moises's dad conversing about who the heck knows what - looks intense but it really wasn't.

And, of course, a few pictures of the center of attention, Dani.

Hanging out with my dad on the deck.

Getting completely sucked in playing with Ose's new iPhone! I NEED ONE! OK, maybe not NEED but definitely WANT one, REALLY, REALLY WANT one!

Can't be all play... so we (alright, we is too many people - they is much more accurate) took advantage of the fact that Ose drove his truck down to Provo (after being told to drive his truck instead of his non-gas-hogging car down to Provo) and loaded it up "ghetto style" to clear out my parents garage and take stuff over to their storage unit.

And, of course, a group picture (without Dan, who had to leave early for work; Moises's younger sister, Mariana, who was taking a nap; and Katie who served as photographer).

The last of the Mexico City adventures

2008-07-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

Alright, so when I wrote yesterday's blog I said today would probably consist of packing and getting things ready to leave... well, it's now 8:00 pm and I haven't packed a single thing. This morning the sun was shining, so I got some pool time... YAY! Then after pool time my dad, who was all packed this morning, took Dan and I to the Castillo de Chapultepec for one last Mexico City adventure. The Castillo de Chapultepec is an 18th century castle that has been turned into the Museo Nacional de Historia. The castle was once the residence of the Emperor Maximilian, President Benito Juarez, and Dictator Porfirio Diaz among others. The castle is beautiful and quite majestic, its kind of like the Versailles of Mexico. Several of the rooms in the castle have been restored displaying its original furniture and allowing you to see what the room looked like when the castle was used as a residence. Unfortunately, this one was the one place we visited where we weren't allowed to take pictures inside but the outside of the castle is pretty impressive and might give you and idea of what the inside may have been like.

Anyway, I should probably go pack... Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Mexico Post-Marie Period - circa July 18, 2008

2008-07-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today was probably our last day out and about in Mexico City. We leave on Sunday and tomorrow is going to consist mostly of wrapping things up and getting ready to leave and MAYBE a little bit of pool time. We'll see how much luck we'll have with that... given that it hailed this afternoon (yes, it HAILED) I'm not exactly expecting tomorrow to be sunshiny but you never know. There is also the possibility of using the indoor pool which is available rain, hail, or shine but it's not the same. Anyway, we've done our fair share of archaeological/historical site seeing and museums while we've been here so today we decided to "spice" things up a bit and went down to the Av. Reform where we visited the Zoologico de Chapultepec (Yep, the zoo - how's that for spicy), had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and visited the Museum of Modern Art.

The Av. Reforma is one of the best known in Mexico City. The street is lined with sculptures/ art work and gardens - it's beautiful.

We took TONS of pictures at the zoo but don't worry, I'll spare you guys and only post a few. We loved the pandas and we decided that the jungle gym definitely resembles their natural habitat... NOT... but these pandas seemed to have adapted to their environment, Darwin would be proud :).

These are dromedaries (single humped camels). Last time we visited Brazil we actually got to ride one which was slightly more exciting than looking at them.

Aren't they beautiful? This was a really cool area of the zoo where the birds just kind of got to roam free. Well, not exactly but they allowed visitors to walk through the giant cage with the birds wandering around.

Dan's a fan of the buffalo so we thought we'd get a picture. These weren't the best looking buffaloes we had ever seen but they were still buffaloes and Dan was still impressed with the size of their heads.

Then for lunch we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe - just in case you couldn't tell by the picture or the fact that I already mentioned this above :). Dan ordered fajitas - which were great, I ordered a salad - which was mediocre, and we both had lemonades were fabulous... but going to the Hard Rock Cafe is more about the experience, the decor, and the memorabilia than the food. So here are a few pictures of the decor and the memorabilia for you...

Dan's an Elvis fan and I'm a U2 fan... convenient that we were able to get both in one picture.

So, we've seen our fair share of museums this trip but I really wanted to visit the Museum of Modern Art before leaving. They only had one of the exhibits open today but it was still really cool.

This was one of my favorite pieces - the picture doesn't do it justice. It's a piece by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco entitled "Mis manos son mi corazon" or "My hands are my heart."

Mexico Post-Marie Period - circa July 16, 2008

2008-07-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

Today we visited another set of pyramids at a place called Tula. Tula is considered the most important Toltec site in Mexico. At its peak the city was believed to have covered up to 6 sq miles and had a population of approximately 40,000. The site is most famous for its giant stone warrior sculptures, Atlantes, located on top of one of the pyramids.

Here we are at "ground level" surrounded by some kind of pillars that were part of some other structure - yep, clear as mud, I know. Anyway, the point of the picture is that you can see the pyramid with the Atlantes behind us.

The bottom of the pyramid is decorated with carved friezes of serpents, eagles, jaguars, and coyotes.

The Cabrals sitting on top of the stairs leading into one of the ballcourts at Tula. I'd give you more information on the ballcourt and the ballgame played there but I know as much about these as I knew about the pillars in the picture above.

Just hanging out on top of a pyramid.

So we all know that ANYTHING looks tall next to me but you have to admit that this is a little more than the usual.

Ok, but really my favorite thing about these giants... they had cute little butts!!! I decided to post the picture of Dan pointing at the butt rather than the picture of me grabbing the butt... just figured it was more G rated. Besides, my dad would approve of Dan's picture more than he would my picture :).

On our way back to Mexico City from Tula we stopped at Tepoztlan where we visited the Museo Nacional del Virreinato and the Iglesia de San Francisco Javier.

Tepotzotlan is a beautiful town, several of the buildings there were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The museum we visited consists of a former Jesuit college, church buildings, and several beautiful courtyards and gardens.

Unfortunately, because you can't take pictures with flash inside of a museum, most of the pictures don't really turn out... so you get pictures of the courtyard and garden instead.

But we did manage to get a decent picture of these bowling balls... yep, bowling balls from the 18th century. Who knew? It's a shame we don't use these wooden (they may have been stone, I don't remember now) bowling balls anymore, at least that way I'd have an excuse for being such a horrible bowler.

Mexico City after Marie...

2008-07-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

Marie left last week and I've missed her... so, in order to deal with her absence I've been keeping myself busy by revisiting all sorts of places that I went to while Marie was here (the National Anthropological Museum, Teotihuacan, and the Zocalo)... ok, so as much as I love Marie I really haven't been revisiting these places to deal with her absence but so that Dan, who arrived after Marie left, could get a chance to see them. Surprisingly, I've actually seen a few new things at all these places.

On Tuesday it was raining (it's been raining pretty much non-stop since Marie left - Mexico City is crying because it misses her too) so Dan and I visited the National Anthropological Museum where we could stay dry. We spend the whole day there and saw ALL of the Anthropological Museum this time. Here are a few things we didn't see with Marie...

There is a second floor to the museum (yeah, we totally missed that the first time) and the upstairs has displays representing several groups of people that live in different regions in Mexico.

We totally missed the Olmec heads the first time around too...

And we never saw this thing... whatever it is. We decided it had lost a head and really needed one so Dan volunteered his :).

And, although Marie and I did see the burial replicas, we totally missed the ghost of Quel (and the ghost of the statue of the woman given birth) floating above the replica.

On Thursday, the rain decided to let up for a few hours, giving us a chance to visit Teotihuacan. Dan and I climbed the pyramid of the moon, which Marie and I didn't do for some reason...

The steps of the pyramid of the moon were by far the biggest and steepest... not really and issue for people with long legs but my legs aren't exactly long...

Still, I did make it to the top and here's the proof... :)

Dan and I also discovered (really, it wasn't exactly like we discovered anything it was pretty obvious but Marie and I managed to miss it completely) a covered area where they had really well preserved pyramids where you could still see the stucco and the painting on the pyramids... it was awesome (sorry you missed it Marie).

Here's Dan at the entrance of this really cool area.

See how the steps were cemented and stuccoed and painted? Teotihuacan must have been pretty darn impressive in its hay day.

Friday was overcast but we managed to escape the rain, for the most part at least, so we took a cab down to the Zocalo (the historic downtown) and also saw a few places that Marie and I didn't get to see. We visited the Palacio de Bellas Artes and saw an exhibit with some of the works of the Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas.

This is a self-portrait bronze sculpture by Jose Luis Cuevas outside of the Palacio de Bellas. Jose Luis Cuevas must be a fascinating individual (those of you who are into art and psychology Google his works and we'll talk sometime).

We also stopped by the Casa de los Azulejos where Dan got his shoes shined. We were totally ripped off (and we knew it too) but we figured the money didn't mean as much to us as it did to the guy shining Dan's shoes - at least that made us feel better about getting ripped off :).

We had lunch at the Cafe de Tacuba... there's a story behind this place but I can't remember it. Whatever the case, the place was beautiful and the food was great.

We also visited the Museo del Templo Mayor... ok, so this place is an old Aztec temple located in the middle of the Zocalo right across from the Catedral Metropolitana and yes, Marie and I totally missed it... I have no idea of how we managed to do that but we did :).

I'm standing in the Templo Mayor in this picture and you can see the Catedral Metropolitana in the background. Yep friend, we were right there... HOW DID WE MISS IT?

And here's a picture of what we missed. The Templo Mayor is fascinating. It has seven different layers - each successive ruler would build a layer on top of the previous layer making the temple bigger each time. Most of it the temple has been destroyed leaving the different layers visible.

Today we visited a town called San Angel (which Marie didn't get to go to). Once upon a time it was considered a rural community well outside of Mexico City but with the expansion and growth of the metropolitan area it's not all that remote anymore and actually just seems like part of the city. Still, San Angel definitely has a different feel than other parts of the city.

There are still a lot of old colonial buildings in San Angel and it is an area largely inhabited by artists and writers. Every Saturday they have a market where these artists display and sell their work.

They also have the BEST quesadillas, really, probably the best food I've had while I've been here! They make the corn tortillas right on site and fill the quesadillas with Oaxaca cheese and your choice of chicken, beef, chorizo, mushrooms, or all sorts of other stuff. If you look closely, you can see Dan and my dad in the upper righthand corner of this picture.

Messy... but DELICIOUS!!!

And, of course, like any good place in Mexico City they have museums all over the place. This one was once the house of some ambassador and is a great example of the colonial architecture found in San Angel.

Sombreros

2008-07-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so if you are going to be in Mexico you HAVE to take a few pictures wearing a sombrero...

Here are a few patriotic "Viva Mexico" sombreros.

And, of course, some fancy mariachi sombreros... in a variety of colors.

A Night of Chaos

2008-07-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

I expected, upon returning to Provo, that my adventures would slow down a little bit. However, our peaceful Sunday evening at home was rudely interupted by the cacophonous alarming of a whole houseful of smoke detectors. Most of us were just sitting and chatting or reading when we were suddenly interupted by the shrill beeping of the alarms. At first we just stared at each other in bewilderment...then we began wandering around the house with our fingers in our ears trying to figure out what had caused the symphony of dissonance to begin. Not finding anything, we began disconnecting the devil devices (at least all of them that we could reach) in an effort to preserve our hearing, while my aunt tried to find someone to call who might have any idea about how to stop the 10 or more shrieking contraptions.
We finally discovered, while on our raid to disconnect anything making noise, the source of the problem. Chrissy and Steph heard a strange noise in one of the back rooms of the basement. Frightened, they ran to find me (as if I could do anything to protect them!) and grab possible weapons (they ended up with a hammer and large plastic spool...nice choices girls!). Well armed, they followed me as we explored what they thought was the sound of a creature locked in one of the back rooms. As we listened a bit longer we discovered that the noise was actually water dripping through the ceiling via the smoke detector. A stream of water followed the alarm as I disconnected it but, thankfully, the beeping stopped. Then we were just left with the mystery of the leaking ceiling.
We quickly discovered that the toilet in the bathroom one floor above was overflowing gallons of water onto the floor (we suspect the workings of the small grandchildren in this disaster). After many towels and some plunging we conquered the toilet and returned it to its normal functioning.
The next task was to dry up the carpet beneath the leak downstairs...towels on the floor to dance on and a towel overhead to keep anymore toilet water from dripping on our heads.
We found some "interesting" things in carpet as we soaked up the water.So in our efforts to calm down and soothe ourselves after the disaster, we decided to make some Oreo shakes. As if the night had not already been full of frustration and unfortunate events, I managed to snap a large plastic spoon in half while scooping ice cream and slice my hand on the rough broken edge...narrowly avoiding bleeding into the ice cream! :) Fortunately, Nurse Chrissy was on hand to superglue my new wound closed so that life could get back to normal.

Adventures Downtown

2008-07-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

Today was Marie's last day in Mexico City so we decided to spend the day playing downtown. We took a cab from Quel's parent's house to the "Auditorio Nacional" and took the "Turibus" from there. The Turibus (as you might deduce from the name) is a bus that tours downtown Mexico City. It's a double decker bus... the best seats were on top where there is nothing to obstruct your view because there is no cover. We were a little concerned about the weather but decided that a little rain never hurt anyone. However, getting wacked by a branch does hurt (Quel learned this by experience today... despite Marie's best efforts she wasn't able to protect Quel from the branch that attacked us while Quel was examining the map).

Here we are outside the Auditorio Nacional waiting to board the Turibus. Marie was really frustrated with the inefficient boarding process... we were able to come up with at least five alternatives that would have been much more efficient for everyone. Although the Turibus has at least 20 stops where you can get off and explore a variety of different things, we only had time to stop and explore the historic center. It was pouring when we got off the Turibus but luckily we were equipped with rain gear (1 black umbrella).

The historic center was gorgeous and consisted of a variety of old buildings (mostly government and religious). The first building we visited was the "Catedral Metropolitana," a Catholic cathedral that was built over an ancient temple from the pre-hispanic period.

Quel's idea of protection from the rain is an umbrella... Marie's is rolled up pants, since it is completely unacceptable for wet Levis to touch skin when you are wearing flip flops.

We met Carolina while we were taking pictures by the flag in the main square of the historic center. We know she looks angry in this picture but it's not Quel's fault, she was just looking at the floor and was kind of shy.

These are a couple of government buildings of some sort... ok, so they explained it to us on the tour but really, it takes more than one time for it to sink in when you are on vacation and your brain is in standby mode.

These pictures were taken after going through heavy security, including ID check, inside the Palacio Nacional. The building includes several murals by Diego Rivera (some of you might know him better as the husband of Frida Kahlo) depicting the history of Mexico. They are pretty powerful murals portraying a painful legacy of extortion and suffering. We spent some time discussing what implications this history has on its people and the development of a culture. If you are interested in some of our thoughts ask us about it sometime.

The cobblestone streets downtown are always busy with the pulse of the city... Quel finds this incredibly energizing. They are also amazingly beautiful.

And, of course, you can't forget the great shopping available in the city... Quel also finds this incredibly energizing.

While downtown we decided to stop for lunch... and ended up purchasing ice cream instead, the healthy alternative (see the little head of the cone barely visible in the picture?).

Don't worry... We did eventually have dinner and it wasn't just ice cream. We had shrimp in a coconut milk sauce with mashed potatoes and salad to celebrate our safe arrival home as well as the safety of the local citizens who may have been in jeopardy while we were loose in the city.

Marie heads back to Utah tomorrow making this the end of this phase of adventure... but stayed tuned for more to come after Quel and Marie are reunited in Provo... who knows what the rest of the summer will bring...

Puerta Del Lago - Cabral Resort and Spa - AKA Quel's Parent's House

2008-07-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Cabral Resort and Spa!

Quel and Marie have been enjoying the extensive facilities at Quel's parent's apartment complex over the past week. Yesterday we decided to document our experience and take everyone on a little tour by reenacting some of the activities we have participated in.

Here's Quel lounging by the outdoor pool... probably one of our favorite activities because it requires no effort at all... that is until the server from the restaurant approaches Marie (while Quel has her headphones on and is totally out of it) and asks Marie if she wants anything to drink or eat. Here's the scene for you... Marie gives the server a blank stare then hits Quel with her book. Quel looks at the book wondering why she's been assaulted while she is relaxing, then looks at Marie's confused expression, then finally notices the server... puts all the pieces together and says "No gracias."

Although there are several paths one can take to get from place to place at the Cabral Resort and Spa, Marie seems to prefer the one where if she happens to trip or slip she ends up all wet (Marie's a ledge walker at heart... if you haven't heard this story ask her about it sometime). Quel prefers a more conventional path.

Here is some evidence of Quel's preference for more conventional paths.

Here is Marie lounging... without the blank stare from the previous story.

When the sun wasn't shining... which was every day except for last Friday... Marie and Quel used the indoor pool. The next few pictures below were taken inside the women's locker room - a camera was probably not allowed in the locker room but, being the renegades we are, we just couldn't resist.

Marie thinks this a bit too decorative for a locker room... the exact comment was "You call this a locker room?"

After swimming we often enjoyed the sauna... Quel's idea of drying up, Marie's idea of sweating. Again, Quel's a little chronically cold and the sauna felt just about right.

On Monday, we were finally able to schedule our massages. This is not exactly what it looked like but our best attempt at replication. This is the end of the locker room pictures... the rest of the pictures are perfectly legal.

Notice in the background the variety of options for competitive activities... tennis court, soccer field, sport court for volleyball and basketball. Yes, they do have a basketball court and no, Quel wouldn't play with Marie. How sad... but really can you imagine... Quel would be at just a slight disadvantage there... only because she didn't have good shoes on!
In addition to all the other amenities in the facility, there is an extensive playground behind the building. Quel has never been rock climbing... Marie's response, "Oh it's easy, start with this wall" which proved to be just enough of a challenge (again, only because of the shoes).

See, "It's easy."

They have adult-sized swings... yes, we are positive these are meant for adults. Then they have the Quel-sized swings...

The playground has a variety of toddler toys... clearly meant for Marie-sized individuals.

They also have these cool twisty... things, that we just about killed ourselves on (you have no idea how true that is).

One of our daily favorites was the fully equipped gym... we tried to take pictures but they all turned out blurry because we were moving at ridiculously high speeds on the treadmill and bike.

We hope you have enjoyed our little tour of Cabral Resort and Spa. We hope you will have the opportunity to visit in the near future.

Sabbath Day Observances

2008-06-29T16:06:00.001-07:00

Today we went to Quel's parent's ward. We don't know what the name of their ward is... it's some kind of name of either Aztec or Mayan origin that neither one of us can pronounce. This was the first time Marie and Quel had ever been to church together. So we decided we needed pictures. Upon arrival, Quel's mom asked the counselors in the ward if they knew if someone would be playing the piano during sacrament meeting (piano players can be scarce at church in Latin America). When they informed her that they didn't she eagerly volunteered Quel to play the piano. This wasn't altogether surprising (Quel seems to have to play the piano every time she visits any of her parent's wards) but this time Quel decided that she wasn't going to do it alone and roped Marie into holding the hymnal open for her (there are no spiral bound hymnals in Spanish, which can be problematic for the pianist). Three cheers for Marie for saving the day! Don't worry these pictures were taken while Quel was playing postlude music after sacrament meeting ended not DURING the meeting.

Ok, the highlight of the day occurred during Sunday School. We were sitting there quietly listening to a lesson about Alma and Amulek... Marie was especially focused trying to understand as much Spanish as she could. Then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, we notice this red balloon floating just above the tops of people's heads. The balloon had just enough helium to keep it afloat but not enough to let it rise to the top of the room. So, this balloon bobs around the room for half of the lesson and NO ONE (except for the two odd foreigners) seem to notice (much less be amused by) the balloon's behavior... which made everything even more funny for the two odd foreigners because everyone kept ignoring this balloon that would suddenly stop right in front of people. Really, at one point the balloon stopped right in front of this one man's chest and the guy didn't even flinch, he just sat there until it floated up again and no one around him even looked at it except for the two odd foreigners giggling in the back row. We anxiously waited for the class to end so that we could get a picture with the renegade red balloon. Unfortunately it looks like we are holding the balloon in the picture but if you look closely you will see that it has a will of it's own and is just floating midair.

Not all play...

2008-06-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

As many of you know we have our comprehensive examinations coming up in August... slightly overwhelming so in order to reduce our anxiety about it we decided we should start study while on vacation (yep... we are just so incredibly responsible we just couldn't help it). We chose to start by reviewing diagnostic criteria. We both purchased "pocket book" versions of the DSM-IV and hauled them to Mexico with us.

We decided we needed some help, so we thought we would take the opportunity while at The City of the Gods to offer up a little sacrifice to the comprehensive examination gods. Marie purchased an obsidian blade and we made good use of it :).

Teotihuacan - City of the Gods

2008-06-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

Teotihuacan is a city located about 45 minutes (minus traffic) northeast of downtown Mexico city. According to Worsham and Bowman (2008), Teotihuacan, also known as the City of the Gods (the name really meaning "the place where men become gods"), is recognized by many as one of the most impressive cities of the ancient world. Some Book of Mormon scholars believe that this is the same city that is mentioned in the book of Third Nephi (or in the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series) as Jacobugath. The city has a variety of imposing structures (pyramids, temples, and other random stuff) that have been excavated and represent only about ten percent of the original city. On Saturday, Worsham and Bowman, spent the day exploring Teotihuacan.

The renowned Mesoamerican scholar, M. Worsham, doing her research on site at the Temple of Quetzalcoatl.

Worsham's sidekick and coauthor, R. Bowman, with the characteristics cement and lava rock structures found at Teotihuacan, including the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, in the background. Worsham with her hosts and tour guides (also known as Quel's parents) standing in the Avenue of the Dead with the Temple of the Moon in the background.

Evidence that Worsham takes her research very seriously and is willing to put herself in dangerous situations in order to become better acquainted with Mesoamerican history.

Bowman looks on and secures the area (Bowman is the obvious choice for ensuring Worsham's security).

With security being an important issue, Worsham and Bowman, survey the area before continuing forward.

Upon finding that the area is safe, Worsham and Bowman take a moment to ponder and meditate upon their findings.

Where's Waldo? Or Worsham and Bowman in this case?

Worsham and Bowman prepare to climb the Pyramid of the Sun... the most daunting task of the day. They climb...
and climb...
and climb...

Successfully reaching the pinnacle, they stop a moment to rest and enjoy the beauty of the view from the top of the pyramid of the sun.

Worsham and Bowman enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Worsham and Bowman refuel with some traditional Mesoamerican food... nachos.

The Start of a New Adventure...

2008-06-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Mexico City on Tuesday. Our flights were fine, nothing major to report. Getting through immigration upon arrival in Mexico, however, really sucked... both of us had to wait about an hour in line to get through... that's what everyone wants at the end of a trip to have to wait an hour to get out of the airport, but we survived. Of course, by the time we did get out of the airport we hit rush hour traffic, which is always lovely in big cities, and it took probably another good hour and a half to get home.

Although neither of us has ever been to Mexico City, our experiences here have been qualitatively different. Quel is completely energized by big cities and is loving the opportunity to be in a big city again, even with the traffic. She is also loving the fact that while she's at her parents house she doesn't have to do much of anything... it's nice to get away from the stresses of everyday life every once in a while. Meanwhile, Marie is surrounded by Spanish everywhere we go and surrounded by Portuguese while we are with Quel's parents...so Marie basically depends on Quel for all forms of communication. And while Quel finds comfort in being at home with her parents Marie is trying to figure out and abide by all the family rules and is having a really difficult time handing her dishes and dirty laundry to the maid (Marie has an easier time being helpful than being helped).

So our days thus far have consisted mostly of chillin'. The first night we were here we really didn't do anything other than get settled in. On Wednesday, we went to the mall... Quel's choice of activity not Marie's. Again, Quel loves the malls in big cities but was really disappointed because she didn't find anything worth buying - how sad! Today we went to the Anthropological Museum with Quel's mom. It's huge and we only had time to see about 1/3 of the museum, which was probably OK because after a while everything starts to look the same anyway and you probably want to split the museum up into different trips so you can enjoy the experience.

In our downtime we have been making good use of all the cool stuff here at Quel's parents' apartment complex. We go to the pool (you have your choice of indoor or outdoor - although we have been confined to the indoor pool because of the lack of sunshine and an abundance rain), workout at the gym (where you can have your own on-call personal trainer...if you want to), and sit in the sauna. We have yet to watch a movie in the private movie theater that is available here...we will be scheduling that soon. We are also hoping to catch the massage therapist that comes to the complex tomorrow and get a relaxing massage. So you can see that our time thus far has been extremely stressful! Anyway, here are a few pictures of our day at the museum.

This is us outside the museum by the cool fountain.

This is Quel looking "stunning" (definitely not Quel's choice of words) while standing next to... something.

We don't really know what this is but we thought we needed a picture of Marie looking "stunning" standing next to it.

We also thought we needed a picture of Marie standing next to this snake. Notice how her hand is on the display... yeah, the security guard saw it too. Marie had no idea of what he was saying to her but Marie is good enough at reading non-verbals that she could tell that the angry look on his face was not a good sign.

Can't you tell Marie is having a great time?

Here's Marie basking in the "sunshine" with the natives... it was important in her recovery after the security guard incident.

One of the really interesting things at the museum is all of the artifacts that depicted people in different conditions in society and life in general. This display here has the artifacts representing the socioeconomic stratification of the ancient Mayan society. The bottom tiers represent the working class and top tiers depict the ruling class. Marie had a fun time contemplating where she and Quel might have fit in this ancient society. Thoughts?

Marie hopes to someday have a cool house like this - Quel, not so much.

Quel hopes to someday have a headdress like this - Marie, not so much.

These two pictures are more evidence of depictions of human conditions. The artifacts in the picture on top are of drunk men (see the red eyes?) and the picture on the bottom shows artifacts of individuals with disabilities of some type. There were also several artifacts representing the roles of men and women in ancient society.

This is a replica of the impressive structures that were used for performing human sacrifices (the big smiles on our faces... inappropriate affect?).

Inspired by the temple for human sacrifices, we decided to perform a little sacrifice of our own...but not a whole human...not even a whole Quel-sized human...just a Quel head.

And here we are waiting for our cab to take us back to modern civilization.

Good times at the beach

2008-06-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

I recently returned from a big family reunion that we have every three years in San Carlos,
Mexico. San Carlos is a little town (just outside the city of Guaymas in the state of Sonora) on the coast. This reunion includes all of the extended family on my mom's side and frequently some family friends who decide to join in the festivities. My grandparents have ten children and almost 80 grandchildren, so we are quite a substantial force when we are all down there together. It is always a blast! We typically rent condominiums right on the beach and stay for about a week. Each family does their own breakfasts and lunches and then in the evening the whole gang gathers together for a group dinner. Two or three families are in charge of dinner and an activity for one night during the week so that you are free every other night to just enjoy the delicious food and the great company.

The best thing about our Mexico vacations is that there is nothing in particulare that we have to do. We just roll with whatever we feel like doing. Most of our time was spent playing on the beach, floating in the ocean, or hanging-out in the pool. We had 12 people from our immediate family with us this year and we had a blast playing games and just spending time together.

A few of the highlights for me this trip included the trip down with all of us in our big, white, 15-passenger van (that we affectionately refer to as Moby Dick- the great white); catching crabs in the estuary; eating lots of great food; playing with the cousins; learning to sail; getting sucked into Avatar (a favorite TV series of my siblings); and soaking up the sun...the weather was awesome while we were there.

Although we had some serious fun and good times there were a few not-so-highlights to our trip. Some of those included the drive down with everyone in the van, a serious ankle sprain, irritating bug bites, lobster-like sunburns, and vicious jellyfish stings.

Despite all of that this is one of the most fun and anticipated family traditions that we have. Everyone excitedly looks forward to and plans for it. My brother told us, as he was arranging his work schedule to take time off, that he would quit his job before he would miss Mexico! Most of us feel the same way. With this trip over, we are all dealing with the onset of post-vacation depression and anxiously looking forward to the next time!

A day at the lake...

2008-06-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

Marie and I were supposed to go wake boarding the week we got back from Cambodia and Mozambique, but as you recall the weather didn't exactly cooperate and then I left for Girl's Camp and Marie left for Mexico with her family and we never got to go. However, on Wednesday (maybe Thursday, I don't really know) I got a phone call from Ose saying that he was taking to boat out this Saturday and wanted to know if I wanted to come along... YAY! (Note to Marie: Sorry you didn't get to go friend, you would have loved it... we'll have to do it again when we get back from Mexico City.)

Today we went out to Utah Lake over by Saratoga Springs... Ose said he would have preferred Echo but the water had been really cold last time he was there and the water at Utah Lake was warmer. He knows I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to cold and I'm glad we went with the Utah Lake alternative because the water was a bit cold and I'm not sure I could have done colder... the water did warm up throughout the day though. So, here are our tales from our day out at the lake.... Debbie, Dani, and I met up with Ose, Brett (Ose's roommate) and Shanlee (Brett's girlfriend) at the marina a little after 10:00 am - Ose was late but we forgive you Ose :). Here we are waiting for Ose to arrive ... he really wasn't that late I'm just messing with him because he kept apologizing for being late.
Debbie and Dani on the boat waiting for our turn to get the boat into the lake.
Ose getting things set up... he did a fabulous job!
And finally in the water ...
Brett was the first to get in the water and did a wonderful job wake boarding... apparently the water was a bit choppy initially but he still managed to get a few jumps and stuff. There are better shots of him doing tricks but they are in Ose's camera. but there he is...
Then, it was my turn. Did I mention I had never gone wake boarding before... So we got me all set up (wet suit and everything so that I wouldn't freeze to death) and Ose guided me through the process and theory of wake boarding and then I got in the water... and there I stayed... :)
This is how I looked most of the time ...
And this was about as close as I got to getting up...
Not a naturally gifted wake boarder... clearly... but next time... maybe...

Here's a shot of Ose wake boarding. Again, better pictures in his camera (I know because I took some of those and got a couple of good shots of him up in the air) but I'll post this one in the meantime and replace it when I get his.
Debbie didn't try wake boarding this time so I have no shots of her but she has done it in the past and, unlike me, she has managed to get up.
Ose also got a tube out so Dani could get in the water... she was hesitant at first but finally got in with me and loved it.
We also went on some wild rides in the tube without Dani (did I say wild mom? what I really meant was "com emoção" :) but completely safe!) and I did a fine job hanging on, if I might say so myself. Of course, my fine job at hanging on did lead to a few battle wounds ... but honestly, my escalator incident injury at Dulles International Airport hurt more than this - this didn't hurt at all.

Really, I know it looks bad but I don't even feel it... in fact, if Debbie hadn't pointed it out I probably wouldn't even know it was there.

So here are a few last shots of our day out at the lake. Our captain ... yes, we actually trusted this guy to handle the boat all day - makes you question our sanity a bit.
Brett... the guy in charge of the boat when the other captain was in the water... further evidence of our questionable sanity.
Shanlee...Los hermanos Cabral... (Note to Sam: We decided you need to come visit us in July or August that way you can experience Utah when it's hot. We'll all go out on the boat and we think you'll have a blast - we could all imagine you laughing like crazy on the tube.) And of course, the cutest little thing on the boat...
As always, hope you enjoyed the pictures! I'll be meeting up with Marie on Tuesday in Mexico City for more adventures so stay tuned. Hope you're all having a great summer!

Adventures from Girl's Camp...

2008-06-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

So, I spent the last 5 days at Camp MIA Shalom with the Young Women from our ward. I currently work as a Mia Maid advisor in my ward and attending Girl's Camp is one of the many activities I get to participate in because of my calling. This was my first time attending Girl’s Camp - we don't do Girl's Camp in South America. So, I’m not much of a camper. I occasionally enjoy camping when we are camping at a resort with showers and a pool but my favorite type of camping is RV camping. So, I was not exactly looking forward to Girl’s Camp. It actually turned out to be a good experience but to be completely honest camp is still not very high on my list of preferred summer activities.

We were the first stake to attend camp this year, and although the weather has been nice in Provo (even though I was complaining about the lack of sunshine last week) the weather up in the Fairview Canyon area (I don't really know where this Camp MIA Shalom is to be completely honest with you guys but I was told that it was in that area) and at 9500 feet was not so warm. In fact, the first night it was there it snowed and it was so cold that the water was frozen so we didn't have running water the whole time we were up there. By Friday the weather was looking better and on Saturday (the day we left) there was a huge improvement in the weather - oh the irony! So, here are a few pictures of camp to help tell the stories. Hope you enjoy!

These are the cabins we stayed in. For you avid campers, I'm sure you think this is like staying at the Marriot but this was my idea of roughing it. They are just like wooden tents... there was nothing in them, no heat, no electricity, nothing. We did set up cots as you can see in the picture below but by the time we got all the cots in the room there was no space to walk which means I ended up with a number of bruises on my knees from running into cots. I did move to a different cabin on Thursday because a couple of other leaders arrived at camp and there was no room for them in the cabins that were already set up so they put us in a new cabin where I had a lot more space and got a lot less bruises.

It was so cold up there that we were constantly layered (it was not uncommon for me to wear 5 or 6 layers on clothes) to try to stay warm. In the picture below I'm sitting on the edge of the fire pit with Natalie (one of the Laurels) and Amy (she was one of my Mia Maids last year). Most people sit next to the fire pit but sitting right on the edge of the fire pit was much nicer and warmer :).
I did learn at camp that I actually do a dang good job at building camp fires... if I have some help. Sometimes we'd have to get a fire started 3 or 4 times in a row because the young women would get so excited about it that they would add too many logs and smother the fire. This fire that we are standing next to was actually the 3rd fire we started that evening. I also learned that I am quite the expert at roasting marshmallows... my marshmallows were famous!

Thursday was the day we went on hikes. I went on the first year hike, not because I'm a wimp (I actually thought the hike was pretty lame and would have enjoyed a little more of a challenge) but because I needed to go on the first year hike to get my first year camp certification. Which I will have you all know I did earn by the end of camp. :)

In the picture below I'm standing next to the first years who just barely entered Young Women's getting ready to leave on our hike. The girls in the picture are Rachel, Audrey, and Emily... and of course, I'm the shortest. Emily is a about 6 feet tall and just towers over me :).

The next picture is with Jaime, one of the other adult leaders who also went on the first year hike. She's hilarious and was a total blast!
Anyone for some lemonade? We were each handed a lemon and candy stick at the beginning of the hike.We were supposed to play with our lemon through out the hike, then at the end of it we stuck the candy stick inside the lemon and sucked the juice out of it... I guess that's one way to mix the lemon juice with the sugar to make lemonade.

We also had Ukelele lessons while at camp. We learned 4 chords which meant we could actually play about 10 different songs. Some of them sounded like a bit of stretch either because the Ukelele's were out of tune or because we weren't playing the chords correctly... my guess is that the Ukelele's were out of tune :).
We went down to the waterfront on Friday. We were supposed to go earlier in the week but it was way too cold and if anyone had fallen into the lake we would have had to life flight them out of camp to a hospital because of hypothermia... although really, the water was just as cold on Friday and we would still have ended up with hypothermia had we fallen into the lake but at least it wasn't as cold while we were on the canoes. So, I sat in a canoe with one of the Beehives and one of my Mia Maids... they each had a paddle but I didn't get one because there weren't enough... SCARY... but they actually did a fine job.

Those of us who went down to the waterfront decided that it would be fun to do some of the activities on the ropes course they had set up by the waterfront. It was probably one of my favorite things at Girl's Camp. The first thing we did was have everyone stand up on this pipe and we had to get everyone to the other end of the pipe without falling off the pipe... so several of the girls fell off but we kept going anyway ... I did make it across without falling though :).

They had a name for this other ropes course challenge but I can't remember what it was. But the general idea is that you have three tress in a triangle and a thick wire that goes around the trees and you have two people balance while walking across the wire from the narrow end to the wider end. When we went to Clear Creek as a cohort with Lane our first year of grad school this was one of the hardest challenges for me... if I remember correctly I was finally able to make it across with Lisa. This time getting across was really easy and I did it several times... clearly evidence of growth since starting grad school :).

On this next challenge the girls had to walk around stumps of different heights that were in a semicircle with their eyes closed while we guided them across the stumps. We were probably not allowed to touch them but it was either that or have them kill themselves as they got a little too anxious to step forward and completely missed the next log.
On this last challenge we had to get all the girls from one side of the "spider web" to the other without sending anyone through the same "hole in the web." We also weren't supposed to touch the web at all or we would have to start over but we gave up on that rule and just decided that it was good enough to get everyone across :).

And finally, the last day of camp... These were all the girls from the Stake (the ones who hadn't left earlier that day or the night before in cars) waiting for the buses that were an hour late! We were all so anxious to get out of there and get home where we could shower that having to wait longer than planned for the buses was really frustrating to everyone...

But anyway, we survived!!! We all still have a little bit of camp fire smoke smell in our hair despite the multiple showers and washings... it'll probably take about a week to get rid of the "smoked sausage smell." I'll also have to wash all of my clothes multiple times to get rid of the same smell... but at least the fire kept us warm. :)

The heavens smiled upon us ...

2008-06-07T18:50:00.001-07:00

We FINALLY got our day at the pool! The forecast for today wasn’t great but we tried to keep hope alive in our little beating hearts and we are glad we did! We spent the morning soaking up the sun on Quel’s patio and in the afternoon headed to the pool where we met up with Marie’s ward for a little pool party. Lucky for us, Marie’s brother, Sam, also graced us with his presence and his newly transformed body – the workouts are paying off Sam, nicely done! So, anyway, not too many stories but we just thought we’d let you know that we did get our day at the pool and we thought you might enjoy some pictures!

2008-06-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

We’ll start by explaining that we are writing this blog together and are going to use both 1^st and 3^rd person – no, we don’t normally talk like that but it’ll just help you keep track of who is saying or doing what. Marie and Quel got back from Cambodia and Mozambique last Thursday and Friday respectively. We are home safe and sound… thanks for following our adventures. We decided that the fact that we are home doesn’t mean our adventures are ending. Next week, Quel has Girl’s Camp and Marie is heading to Mexico for a family trip. A few weeks after that Quel and Marie are heading to Mexico City to visit Quel’s parents who currently live there… so stay tuned for more summer adventures!

Today, however, we want to tell you about our “week in the sun.” So, Quel came back from Mozambique with a lovely farmer’s tan and she decided she needed to fix that and so our solution was to spend the whole week at the pool and wake boarding with Quel’s brother. We both love the beach but there is no beach to be seen here in happy valley so we decided that the pool, a thoroughly inadequate substitute for the beach, would have to do for now. Well, it would have been a lovely week … except for the fact that there was NO SUN and IT’S FREEZING! We both got back from really hot places and Quel is chronically cold anyway so we spent the whole week cooped up indoors with sweatshirts! How sad! To make matters even worse we both purchased new bathing suits, shorts, and sunglasses in anticipation but never got to use any of them!

So, today we decided that we would go to the park. A little bit of sun and no water but at least it was outdoors. We also decided to take a camera along with us and decided that it’s a good thing we don’t normally carry a camera around to record all the ridiculous things we do. But here are a few pictures of our day at the park. We played catch – Marie did very well, Quel not so much (but Marie told Quel she did very well). There were a couple of times when you could tell Marie thought Quel was going to end up in the emergency room. The ball was heading for Quel dangerously fast and stopping frighteningly close to Quel’s face, and Quel seemed a bit unsure which way was the best direction to move her glove to protect herself. But after many close calls and sighs of relief we managed to leave the park without casualty.

In addition to our exciting game of catch, we gave the merry-go-round swings a shot, but failed miserably at making it spin around. Marie managed to entertain herself by swinging sideways and taking on the challenge of swinging fast and far enough to be able to touch the middle pole.

After swinging Quel found out that Marie didn’t know how to do cartwheels so we had a few cartwheel lessons. Anyway, not the pool and definitely not the beach but we entertained ourselves.

For dinner we made hummus – our favorite meal to make together – and had a blast trying to figure out the camera’s timer so that we could get a picture of the two of us eating our pitas together. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Kids at play

2008-05-30T12:43:00.001-07:00

It is so fun to watch Cambodian children play, especially when they can put their adult responsibilities aside and have a good time. They tease and laugh and work through arguments the way I have seen so many other children do. They play until they roll on the ground laughing or sit there panting trying to catch their breath. They don’t have very many “toys” here so the children have learned to be resourceful. They play a lot of games that don’t involve any special equipment or training. The games that need equipment usually require a shoe, a rock, or a single ball. Today, I played with some kids by a lake in Siem Riep as they jumped a rope made out of vines tied together into a long string. Simplicity and creativity are the keys to the games that these kids have mastered, and they will always welcome you into the fun…if you can keep up with them!

Non-Tabitha families

2008-05-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

One thing we did as we went out visiting Tabitha villages was to talk to a few people living in communities that had had no contact with Tabitha and in some cases no contact with any NGOs at all. The families we met were very poor, and it was obvious as we talked to them that some major differences existed between them and the people participating in the Tabitha programs. It is hard to tell at this point if those differences emerged because of their participation in the program or if the differences influenced their decision and opportunities to participate in them. Nevertheless, some striking and heart-breaking things became clear to us.

The pain and constant struggle that represents their life is obvious when you talk to them, and the exhaustion of living just exudes from them. They have no plans for the future. They can't really see beyond food today and finding work tomorrow. It was so sad to ask them questions about what they hope for in the future or what they worry about for their children, and observe their inability to see beyond food and shelter. Those are the obvious concerns and they loom so large that anything else is eclipsed. No wonder they have such difficulty making changes...they don't have time or energy to even think about change let alone start moving toward it. The people participating with Tabitha in the saving program seem to have begun to see a little sliver of hope shining through the door of possibility that is just barely starting to open for them, with the help of people who genuinely care. What a gift these representatives are giving people. They are helping them open their eyes to what could be. I take that ability for granted. We are so fortunate; we get to think about goals and possibilities and relationships. We can even think about thinking! I can't imagine struggling the ways these people do. I feel so helpless and unfairly privileged, and I realized that in many ways I have done nothing to merit those privileges. Talking to these families has really helped me see life from a different perspective.

On the go

2008-05-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

There are many possibilities for transportation here in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Some people walk, others prefer to ride bicycles if they are fortunate enough to have access to them, while motos are the most common personal and family vehicles here. Public transportation has many faces. In the city, cyclos, a bicycle pushing or pulling a cart for someone or something to be transported in, seem to hold the bottom tier. Moto dopes, people who take people on the back of their moto like a personal taxi, belong to the next rung to the public transport ladder. Then there are kombeys. Kombeys (or tuk-tuks as adopted from Thailand) consist of a motorbike attached to a type of carriage with seats for passengers. There are many more trucks and cars on the streets now than there were the first time I came to Cambodia. Trucks are mostly used for work vehicles. Some families have cars, but that is much less common here than in the U.S. You can usually find cars for rent as a mode of transportation from city to city. This is a faster way to go, but considered less safe than the bus system which is only set up as an inter-city rather than an intra-city service. Cyclos, motos, and buses are the cheapest options for transportation if you do not own your own vehicle…but my favorite is still the average bike. You have the freedom to fly and not go too fast to miss the novelty and beauty of things around you.

The Life of Kay

2008-05-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

The most heart-breaking experiences here seem to happen when you are interacting with the kids. Maybe their innocence makes the hopelessness and pain more obvious, or maybe we just see kids outside the callous stereotypes that we seem to develop in relating to one another as adults. Whatever the reason, it happened to me again today at the beach.
Jes and I took a trip to a beach town about 4 hours southwest of Phnom Penh. We were just hanging out on the beach and attempting to talk our way out of buying all the stuff people were trying to sell us. One little girl came selling some snacks. She carried a flat basket filled with the chips and dried fruit she needed to sell on her head. She is eight years old and her name is Kay. She looked so tiny next to the other children and adolescents selling things on the beach, but she was tough…pushing her goods, making sure she had all her money and that she didn’t take any bills that were too dirty or torn back to her mother. She looked stressed and a bit overwhelmed when things didn't go as planned in carrying out her responsibility in helping to provide for her family.
Kay sold us some treats and stayed around for a while. I talked to her a little bit in Cambodian, and Jes kept talking to her in English. She loved practicing her English and eventually came up next to Jes and drew the lines of a tic-tac-toe square in the sand. She and Jes began playing tic-tac-toe all over the beach. Then they drew pictures in the sand. Eventually, they began playing a game similar to hopscotch. It was amazing to watch the change that took place. As she began playing, she left her basket of goods next to me on the sand (I’m glad she trusted us so much especially in area with so much theft), and seemed to become a different person. She went from a street-hardened, frustrated, overly burdened girl taking on adult responsibilities to an endearing little 8 year-old child with a tender heart and a smile to match it! She laughed, explored, left her basket behind, and became creative. It was like magic. And there I was sitting on a mat on the beach in a small little town in Cambodia crying because I have just seen a miracle.
I sat there and wondered what would become of her obvious talents and artistic sensitivity without opportunities to develop those gifts. Now I wonder how long it will be before she no longer remembers how to put her basket down and go play, before she forgets what it means to trust, and before she becomes a product of survival rather than the spring of creativity that was evident today. I cried tears of sorrow for Kay and the difficult life she has before her. I cried for the countless others like her, wanting to hope for their future but feeling the despair and hopelessness that they are always fighting in their own lives. If I feel the struggle to have hope in the possibilities for their futures from where I stand with experiences, vision, optimism, and resources, how do I expect little Kay to have hope in something she has never seen before…not in her own life or in the lives of her family members and friends?
I am grateful to have witnessed the beauty of a child today, and I am still working to make sense of what I experienced. Maybe for now it is enough to have experienced it. Still I hope that these experiences, both beautiful and painful, change me. However, I know this kind of change is not a passive process, and I am left with more questions everyday. What do experiences like this mean about my life? How do I make sense of the poverty and suffering here? And what will become of little Kay?

Song and dance...soul and body

2008-05-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

Cambodians love music and dancing...especially karaoke style! There are hundreds of little karaoke places all over the city. Many people have karaoke machines in their houses, and they often buy karaoke VCDs rather than the usual audio CDs. They don't necessarily have a lot of training in music, but their singing and dancing (in all forms or styles) is very much a part of their culture. You can hear music floating from houses and businesses of all kinds as you ride down the street and it claims a significant role in almost all important and popular events here. I have included a picture of some young adult members doing a little hip-hop at a church activity, and of one of our friends singing at a traditional wedding. The video clip is of a band playing at the night market here in Phnom Penh.

Sugar Cane

2008-05-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

Today we visited a Care for Life village called Chiverano. We followed one of the Care for Life workers (Chichonga) around as he visited families in the village to check up on how they were doing on their goals. After we finished visiting the families we stopped by the house of one of the local Care for Life community leaders so that Chichonga could teach her a bit more about her duties as a Care for Life leader in the community. While we were resting the leader's father handed Summer and I two huge sticks and told us they were sugar cane. So, after a few seconds of starring at the sugar cane and making it very evident that we had no idea of what to do with it, the man started peeling it for us. Then he handed me a knife so that I could peel it myself. Then they decided that I was going to kill myself trying to peel the sugar cane (maybe not kill but DEFINITELY injure) and they took the knife away from me - probably a good thing. So then we were left with a huge cane of sugar and the top part peeled... so we figured we'd just suck on it. No one told us that the correct way to eat a sugar cane is to break the cane in segments and cut the segments up into pieces, chew the pieces, and then spit out the fibers. And, of course, they waited until we decided we were done struggling with our canes to model the correct way of eating sugar cane. We didn't look foreign at all!!!! :) We had a great time though ... they got a total kick out of us and we enjoyed the sugar cane and the experience! :)

The Killing Fields

2008-05-19T21:49:00.000-07:00

I've been avoiding writing this post a little bit because it is a difficult and painful topic. Last week, Jes and I went out to see a particular site of the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields include several areas where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and brutally executed in the late 1970's during the reign of Pol Pot, a leader of the Communist Khmer Rouge regime. It is a spot that many tourists visit, although not one of my favorites. You can feel a weight of sorrow and helplessness in the atmosphere there. They have made the area we visited into a monument with information about the Khmer Rouge and what happened to the Cambodian people during Pol Pot's reign of terror.

As you walk in to the area, you are confronted by a tall building with long glass windows encasing thousands of disintered skulls. Some years ago the government dug up the mass graves there in order to provide evidence of the autrocities commited by the Khmer Rouge "killing machine." These skulls are displayed as part of the monument. You can also see the sites where the victims were unceremoniously buried after they were tortured and killed. As I walked around, with some of my dear Cambodian friends, I felt a mixture of strong emotions. I felt angry that such inhumanity could occur and such disbelief that anyone could treat a fellow human being with such cruelty. I felt heavy with sadness and despair as I contemplated the helpless position that so many found themselves in during that time.

It would be nice to say that all this suffering is a thing of past, but unfortunately it still haunts the Cambodian people in so many ways. I met very few of the older generation here who didn't lose family during that era. Many citizens were forced to leave their homes and relocate. Virtually everyone has been affected in some way. Important documents and records were lost. Economic and technological progress was stymied as those who were skilled, educated, or out-spoken were destroyed. I am incredibly grateful for my opportunity know so many of these great people so intimately. I think this relationship makes my knowledge of their history and their suffering that much more painful. Visiting the Killing Fields is one of those rare and valuable life experiences that reminds you how fragile and precious each life really is.

Tabitha

2008-05-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

We finally got in contact with Tabitha, the one NGO that we had a connection with before we left. We had our first chance to visit one of the villages participating in their programs. Tabitha is an organization that works to build communities and infrastructure. They have several projects that they run in villages that agree to work with them. They have programs such as house-building, savings and banking, well-digging, and others. It was cool to see what the savings program has done. Tabitha chooses the most poor communities and families and presents their program to them. Often it is difficult for the people to trust them to do what they say they will do and really help them. So the gist of it is that families will save a certain amount of money each week. They will give it to their community Tabitha representative who keeps it in a sort of bank. They are given 10% interest on everything they put in to the bank. They deposit a certain amount each week and then they receive the interest at the end of each 11-week cycle. The families, not the NGO, then decide what they need the most. They decide how and when to spend their savings. It was interesting to see what different families had chosen. Some improved their houses, invested in personal businesses, or purchased better modes of transportation. The beauty of what Tabitha is trying to do is in allowing families to make their own decisions and start to really help themselves. We will be going out for two full-days next week with one of Tabitha's full-time employees who works out in the various communities. She will be taking us out to a village that is just starting the program and also one that has recently graduated from Tabitha's program. We are hoping to gather some before-and-after information. It should be a good couple of days.

The Beach

2008-05-17T10:23:00.001-07:00

This week was long and hard ... so we were all excited about our trip to the beach on Saturday. It turned out to be everything we hoped it would be. The weather was fabulous, the waves were perfect, and the place was beautiful. We got there in the morning and stayed until sunset. Hope you enjoy the pictures (can you spot the not in the first picture?).

Wedding Festivities

2008-05-16T15:06:00.000-07:00

So the other day we had a chance to attend a traditional Cambodian wedding. It was actually the first one I have attended eventhough I've spent a great deal of time in Cambodia, so it was a treat for me and Jes seemed to enjoy it as well. Weddings and funerals are very important here. Everyone gets all dressed up and there is lots of food, music, and dancing. The bride and groom, as well as the wedding party, have special costumes that they wear. It is a loud, busy, and very lengthy affair. Guests often come in the evening, but usually wedding traditions and ceremonies have been going on for a day or so. I have one friend who told me that her wedding began in the afternoon and then went through the night (taking pictures and conducting special ceremonies with family) and into the next day until the guests arrived that evening. They were completely exhausted. It is one big, expensive, and very fun event that everyone looks forward to! I have included some pictures and a video from the wedding. I'm sorry if you get slightly nauseated watching the video! The quality isn't the best but you get the idea. :) Oh, I also added a picture of myself and one of my friends after she did my make-up as she would have if I were getting all dressed up for a wedding, which we did not get to do for the wedding we attended. Enjoy!

Friends

2008-05-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

In all of my worry about our research projects and getting things settled for our trip, I forgot how many friends I have here. I feel so privileged to have so many people who care about me. There has been an outpouring of love, affection, and help from the people here. They are generous and self-sacrificing in so many ways! I often feel very lost for a way to fully express my thanks and affection...sometimes the only thing I do is to graciously accept what they so willingly offer (as hard as that is for me at times :) ). They are also incredibly physically affectionate within gender. I love this about them and thrive on it when I am here. I miss that type of communication and connection when I am back at home. I have included some pictures of just a few of the people that have done so much for us and that I have great respect and care for. We have definitely had some good times together so far!

Baseline

2008-05-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Today we visited one of the villages in

Mozambique

that Care for Life does not work with. The idea was to get a “baseline” so that we could better understand and see changes that may have occurred in villages that Care for Life has been working with. So we walked around to random houses in the village and asked people to describe their life to us, tell us things they wished they could change in their lives, and tell us a bit about what would help them make those changes. We tried to talk to people of different age groups (mostly young adults and older adults) and different gender to make our sample as varied as possible. It was informative but incredibly difficult. It was hard to have people share their experiences with me and talk about the things they needed. I felt so helpless and hopeless, which is exactly how these people feel. I wanted so bad to be able to improve their lives for them and give them hope but it was hard to do when all I had with them was 5 or 10 minutes and I wasn’t feeling much hope myself. The children, however, always make me smile. Despite the fact that their conditions are miserable and they live at a level of poverty that we can’t really begin to understand they are cheerful, and playful, and fun, and man can they dance! But the brightest spot on this trip to the village was a little boy wearing a “pair of glasses” of about the same size as mine – apparently large glasses are also “in” in Mozambique!

The fruit from hell

2008-05-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

So this season not only brings an increase in rain here in Cambodia, but also an increase in the harvest of a popular fruit called durian. Almost every Cambodian I've ever met loves it, while most foreigners seem to avoid it like the plague. Durian is a large fruit that grows on a tree. It is kind of a dark, dirty green color on the outside and has spikes all over it (which should be a warning to anyone wanting to try it...or at least a foreboding sign of things to come!). The inside, once you get past the spikes and the tough shell, is a light yellow color with the consistency of a thick sticky goo when you bite into it. It also has a unique, vomit-inducing smell. Lucky for us, they are selling it everywhere right now so we can't go anywhere without getting a good whiff of it as we ride by!

Usually I can avoid durian or at least weasel myself out of any situation in which I might have to eat it. Unfortuately, I was not so successful at this the other day. Jes and I went to visit the family of one of my friends. They had made a special dessert. A durian sauce over sticky rice...which is actually a fabulously delicious treat with any other fruit. They also had fresh durian for us to eat. In their minds they were giving us a real delicacy. So there we were, caught between our survival instincts and our cultural sensitivity! What a bind! So I managed to down the durian sticky rice, but when I ventured to taste the fresh durian it was all over. Luckily, Jes began talking to them right as I gagged, deflecting the attention of the group at a critical moment. So just a warning to all of you potential travelers...Beware of the durian devil fruit!

Déjà vu and Firsts

2008-05-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

This trip has already been full of many deja vu moments. The Cambodia I came to know and love was the one seen through the eyes of a missionary. Coming here as a researcher and as friend provides a very different perspective. However, some things bring familiar memories flooding back.

For example, those of you who are familiar with Southeast Asia know that the rainy season is just beginning. The weather seems to be fairly predictable right now...hot and clear in the mornings and afternoons filled with spurts of torrential rain that send everyone running for cover. Jes and I were going to visit some friends the other day and got stuck in one of those exhilarating downpours. Sometimes I forget that I don't have to be out in the rain trying to get to a teaching appointment anymore. Jes is good about always reminding me that we can stop and put ponchos on. By the time we got to my friend's house we were soaked and dripping despite the ponchos. We stood outside the door wringing our clothes out and still dripped water all over their house! Good thing they love us!

In addition to the rain, riding a bike brings back so many memories and flashes of familiar emotion! Yes, we did get bikes to travel around the city. It is much less expensive than riding on motos or in kombeys and you feel so free when you can go wherever you want whenever you want. As soon we got our bikes and began riding, I felt invigorated and energized! I was unaware of this until Jes noted that she was exhausted from riding around all morning...my experience was the exact opposite. Jes does a great job bringing me back down to earth, by reminding me to slow down and that there is "not an investigator at the other end" of our ride! :) We have a good time riding around Phnom Penh and even were able to find a difficult address this morning. I'm sure there will be more biking adventures ahead for us.

These moments of deja vu are almost as frequent a the new experiences I am having here. So far there have been many firsts. For example, the other day after beening stuck in the rain we went across the street from my friend's house and got our nails done. I know it is hard to believe that I would even think of such a thing! But I'm sure it wasn't my idea. :)

A couple of days ago I had a chance to go with Cambodian friends and some former Elders who are visiting or doing work here in Cambodia to a Cambodian dance club. I love music and dancing but I have never been to a club here before (not really a popular P-day activity!). It was a total blast! The music was great and you just felt enveloped in it as you walked into the club. You could feel your heart start to beat with the vibrations of the music and your body start to move to the beat. And of course we big white Americans blended in just about as well on a dance floor with our Cambodian friends as we do anywhere else around here!

I also had the opportunity to go to a movie theatre here...wow! not exactly what you would expect in a theatre experience. It was an interesting challenge for my language skills and and telling of Asian interests and humor. The movies they like here are so different, but they seem to really enjoy American movies as well. I think I might have to stick to my old favorites!

Cambodian Tales

2008-05-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Well, Jessamyn (my research partner and friend) and I have been in Cambodia for several days now. We have seen much adventure already, but are just barely starting to make some headway with the NGO research. We, unlike Quel's part of the research team in Mozambique, don't have one specific NGO that we are connected with. It took us several days to get in touch with the few contacts we have.
Today we met with a very nice man who is the head of an organization that works on community development here...in other words he does lots of training, consultation, and evaluation with various NGOs here. He talked about what the NGOs aren't doing and what he is trying to accomplish through his trainings. One major thing he does is to encourage them to adapt their services to the needs of the communities they serve rather than just the interests of the donors. He had some great ideas and indicated that he knows of no NGOs here that are really challenging the people they serve to serve themselves and move forward in their own way. This is part of what makes our research so daunting here. Few groups are actually running programs that are effective in helping individuals and communities develop self-reliance, and if they are no one knows about them. It is interesting to hear Cambodians talk about the problems they are facing and begin to better understand why it is so difficult for them to make important changes.
Our next research adventure will be on Wednesday. We are planning to head out to a village served by the Tabitha organization. We will be going out with them and we have no idea what to expect. Observation and curiostity seem to be our best tools for now.

Today we play ...

2008-05-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

It’s not exactly like we’ve been hard at work per say but the last few days have been stressful with travel and adjustments so we thought we’d take the day to play since Care for Life doesn’t do anything on Saturday. The human resources director for Care for Life (Gil) borrowed on of Care for Life’s vehicles and took Andre, Andrea, and Me for a drive. We went and got some water – we haven’t had running water the last few days – and drove around Beira. We got to see some of the nicer parts of Beira – there are some beautiful parts of Beira. Then we went out for lunch at the beach – literally. (Side note: Beira means shore in Portuguese). The beach… I LOVE THE BEACH! My summer vacations as a child were spent at the beach and I still find the beach incredibly invigorating. I love it! We weren’t dressed for the beach – as you can see in the pictures – but we couldn’t resist taking our shoes off to feel the sand on our feet and wet our feet in the Indian Ocean. It was WONDERFUL!

Children

2008-05-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

The kids here love having their picture taken. I swear you could entertain them for hours just by taking their pictures and showing them the camera after taking their pictures. They are sweet kids. It's hard to know how old the kids here are. Some of them are very small for their age, so it's virtually impossible to tell their age by their height and weight. Their language development also isn't a good indicator because they are learning both the local dialects and Portuguese simultaneously - plus the Portuguese here is so different from the Portuguese in Brazil that I'm not even sure whether or not adults are saying things correctly all the time. The other thing I noticed is that I rely a lot of kids clothes and toys back home to figure out their age - I can tell that a kids is 10 when he is interested in the same stuff and wearing the same clothes as other 10 year olds I know. Life here is so different.