20.

I have been ANXIOUSLY anticipating my birthday as the long summer weeks have gone by with little Giuseppe time and few and far between outings from this darn apartment complex. Our car is broken, so we couldn't drive out to the coast like I wanted. :( BUT I got a day with my husband and a trip out of the apartment, so I was definitely pleased.

We Ubered (via Jason from North Dakota) over to a shopping cluster a few miles away and bought movie tickets. We had some time to kill before our movie, so we walked over to Cabela's to look at the fish. After spending a lot of time giving each fish a personality and back story based on their facial expressions, we bought some candy and headed over to the movie theater for "Lights Out". I specifically wanted to watch a horror movie in a movie theater, so this was perfect. I used to be super chill during scary movies, but I'm actually kind of a baby now and I was pretty scared by the time the trailers ended. The movie itself was pretty good. Giuseppe didn't really like it, but I screamed and curled into a ball and squeezed the life out of my husband. So fun!

Next on the agenda was Tucano's, but we hadn't reached starvation yet, so we killed time in Bed Bath & Beyond on a camping couch while G told me mission stories. Random, right?

Then at Tucano's we of course gorged on everything in sight until we were about to puke. Our meat servers were funny, one in particular came over at the end of the meal and told us that he'd gotten seven compliments in the past week and that people loved him. That was kind of strange. We ended the meal splitting the mango cake which is HEAVENLY. We ordered it last year when we went to Tucano's around my birthday and I haven't gotten it out of my mind. It was even better than I remembered.

After the meal, I was too full to want to do anything but lay on the cement ramp behind the theater and watch the clouds. Giuseppe wasn't really into this until he spotted the large swan I pointed out. We mourned loudly as it was decapitated.

When I gathered enough stamina to stand up, we were picked up by an Uber (via Jason from Mississippi) and taken back to our apartment complex where we went swimming! I used to not like swimming, but lately the heat (and lack of much else to do) has made it one of my favorite pass-times.

Luckily we had the pool to ourselves, so we had the freedom to be as rambunctious as we wanted. (Although there were some ladies lounging outside who probably though we were freaks). Giuseppe taught me how to do flips under the water, and then he would recreate my lame worm-like attempts for me. The funniest part (in my opinion) was when we were playing Marco Polo and I decided to get out of the water while Giuseppe searched for me and see how long it would take for him to realize I wasn't actually in there. Unfortunately Giuseppe heard me before I even got out of the pool and was able to witness what he later called "a pathetic looking topple" back into the pool as I slipped and fell into the ONE FOOT DEEP kiddie area. Ouch!

It seems that every time we swim together, we end up making up some dramatic story line and acting it out. This time it was a horror rendition of various movies we've seen. Haha so fun!

We finished the day with a phone call with our moms and then crashed, still in a food coma.

It was a fantastic birthday and I'm so grateful for my sweet husband who makes life fun and exciting. I wouldn't want to spend the day with anyone else!

Also, I must say that my birthday was waaaaay better than his lame 24th birthday in April. It landed on the last day of school and he spent the day (and all the days leading up to it) drowning in final projects. We had about two hours left at the end of the day to eat cake and open presents and then I watched him pass out from exhaustion. :(

Updates: summer lovin'

We are spending our summer in Greenville, South Carolina while Giuseppe works as a sales representative for Vivint. I did it too, for about a month, and… quit. I could go on and on about WHY I quit, but for heaven's sake, Giuseppe might read this and we need to keep his spirits up!

Things are pretty chill for me now. I work as the office assistant but I also spend my days studying French! Besides just reading from my textbooks (which gets OLD after a while), I am reading general conference addresses in French while learning vocabulary and trying to follow grammar patterns. It’s been a thrilling summer. ;)

Haha no but really, I love being here in this beautiful city. And the best part is, I get to spend lots of time (well, sort of) with my babe! I am so proud of his hard work and motivation. He’s the greatest.

The apartment we are in is fantastic! There’s a cute little “cupboard under the stairs” that we say Harry lives in. Whenever we hear fishy noises, or if the milk was left out, or whenever we are out of food, we always blame it on Harry. He’s always under his invisibility cloak, duh. That’s why we can’t see him. But we know he’s there. Doing tomfoolery. That ungrateful prat!

There are a billion and ten bugs here, something that we are not necessarily a fan of. BUT we do like the gutsy little frogs that sit outside our apartment door trying to get inside.

Also, everyone and their mom has a dog. Our apartment complex is dotted with dog parks, and there are ALWAYS people outside walking their dogs. The weird thing is, they are actually very classy dogs. They rarely bark, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single dog dropping here. They’re not defensive either. If I get too close to the apartment door, they don’t even care. I swear sometimes they even smile at me. Much unlike the mangy mutts who tried to kill me in the neighborhoods I used to knock. Yes, I definitely belong here instead of there.

Sundays are DEFINITELY the best day of the week. We have the greatest little ward. The people are awesome. Whenever our car won’t start after church (which is often), a small crowd is there to help us out. And we’ve been invited over for dinner several times too! We also have a new calling! Nursery leaders. I will definitely do a post on our experiences.

So that's us!

New Orleans

Here are some shots of our most recent preseason sales trip to New Orleans!

From the pictures it may just look like this trip was fun and games but it was actually 75% knocking doors, 10% spending time in a 2 bathroom house with 30 people, 5% choking down fast food, and 5% in rental cars with ridiculously speedy drivers blasting rap music. The other 5% is documented below:

Driving to Las Vegas:

A random business outside of my neighborhood. A hair salon, snow cone shack, and car wash all in one. Odd, right? :

G and I on a morning stroll in the Bayou:

Eating oysters from the shell:

At the restaurant: (we ordered the most DIVINE crème brûlée)

Sales is hard work, but we are getting better and better every day! It really is a fun job.

One of my sales was to an older couple. The husband did not want the system at all, but unfortunately he didn't wear the pants in the relationship. He sat on the porch angrily in the rain while the system was being installed as the wife and I chatted. Haha.

Another of my sales was to the funniest sassy black lady I've ever met. She told me all the neighborhood gossip and talked lovingly about her baby (her maniac pitbull).

Last trip we were separated into different hotel rooms, G with the guys and me with the girls. This trip we did get a bed to ourselves, and we got to share the room with Braun, one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet.

A Day In The Life: Random Shenanigans

This post will consist of me going through photos on my phone and telling about random moments in our life.

1. Laundry Shenanigans

Giuseppe thought he could save some quarters by putting ALL of our laundry in one lil' dryer. He became very distraught when all of our things came out very damp. It was rough.


2. French Quarter Shenanigans

On a biz trip to Nola. I thought these guys were pretty good.


3. Vegas Shenanigans

Blurry pic in this horrid city before our flight.


4. Jefferson Parish Shenanigans

A morning of background checks, fingerprints, paperwork, and waiting around. Giuseppe just wanted to hit the doors!


5. Ray Ban Roadtrip Shenanigans

He looked a lot cooler before I told him to look cool for the camera.


6. Valentine Shenanigans

Classic adult-head-sized sugar cookies from mom.


7. Vietnamese Shenanigans

After touring the beautiful Provo City Center Temple, we dined at a Pho restaurant downtown. This is the only picture we got of the evening, sadly.


8. Ava & Grayson Shenanigans

They stole G's phone.



9. Opera Shenanigans

Before we got married, we discussed our sleeping habits so we knew what to expect. G claimed he was a totally quiet sleeper, but I told him that I imagined him sleep-singing, particularly to this opera-ish song that we like. In this video, he is pretending to sleep-sing. The fangs have nothing to do with it, he just happened to be wearing the. (We were at our cute nephew's birthday party).


10. Singles Ward Shenanigans

Yeah, this was taken a few months ago but whatevs! G was leading the hymn in Sunday School VERY enthusiastically.

Well that about sums us up.

Ciao!

How Rare A Possession

The other night Giuseppe forced me to stay awake even though I was exhausted. 

He needed to watch a video for his religion class, and he wanted me to watch it with him. He told me he had seen it on his mission and loved it so so much. 

This little movie is only an hour, and although the quality is absolutely dreadful, you MUST watch it! 

It is an incredible story about FAITH and HOPE and PATIENCE and TRUE DOCTRINE! If you don't come away from this movie with an undying love for the Book of Mormon, then I can only think of one other thing that will:

Go read it!! It is the book of happiness! 

I love the part at the very, very end where Vincenzo is welcomed into the Switzerland temple. What a happy sight, to see such a faithful man about to receive the knowledge and peace of the temple.

Culturing My Husband

I have this random fetish for dance recitals, so when I heard about a ballet performance going on at the U, I insisted to Giuseppe that we go.

We went to a ballet (Aladdin) together back in May, but it was cut short due to a fire drill. He's been to a couple of his niece's dance recitals, but he's never really experienced REAL ballet.

The show had lots of diversity- there was classical ballet, Eastern European ballet (Bulgaria was represented!!), and MODERN ballet, which is always the most fun to watch.

The modern ballet section was quite long and very silent and very dark and very dramatic. It was fascinating. Giuseppe kept clearing his nose, but it sounded like he was stifling laughter, so that was kind of embarrassing. 

Here are the only pictures I got that night, us sharing a delicious rainbow lollipop. 

Go art!

Happy birthday to somebody out there

G texted me during my shift on Saturday night asking what I wanted for dinner when I came home. I told him, "Birthday cake!", but then half an hour later I wrote back, "jk we can just have leftover tacos." 

Anyway, G being the total babe that he is actually MADE ME A CAKE!

We made the frosting together when I got home out of makeshift ingredients we had lying around.

Because we don't have a beater or a kitchen aid (so sad), the process involved us taking turns whipping the liquid in the bowl as fast as we could for as long as we could before screaming in pain and dropping to the floor and letting the other person take the next shift. 

Eventually, we had mediocre frosting to put on his homemade cake!

I love this cutie.