St. George and Cedar Cedar

**Disclaimer: I for the life of me cannot get this stupid post to format correctly. I apologize for the various font sizes and colors. I have no idea. Stupid stupid.

I am bored with myself. I used to scrapbook like a crazy person but it turns out I did it because I was a little bit crazy. I found that my need to do all the crafting was a way for me to escape my reality. Focus on the happiness of the past, forget the current misery.

Seriously, I learned how to "crochet" baby hats using the loom rings at a Relief Society event and could make 2 an hour and would go through yarn like nobody's business because I was completely in denial about my life. Speaking of, I have a bag full of them if anyone wants some baby hats this winter.

But what do I do now that I'm not miserable?

I'm attempting a few things. Forgive me for the half A-ed attempts but it's 1:37am. Again, I'm bored. I was fiddling around with Adobe Photo Elements and figured out a few things a little too late. Ah well. Next time will be better. And faster.


Alex's younger brother was married in the St. George temple to his lovey of a whole 9 months last weekend. We left Thursday an hour and a half later than we should have thanks to work and arrived just in time to help put the decorations up for the reception. LONG DAY.

The next morning his fabulous mom made everyone homemade doughnuts. Here is a short synopsis of this story:
Alex's great-grandparents made homemade doughnuts in the great depression to sell. They sold them for 30 cents if they were lucky. They woke up every morning around 3am to start making the doughnuts in their kitchen. Put them in the box attached to their bike in the summer and sled in the winter. That's how the family survived the depression. Doughnuts!

After everyone showered up and got beautiful we headed to the Temple. We arrived and my car wouldn't lock. Stupid electric car. I leave it unlocked and walk off to the rest of the wedding party. Who's going to break into a car parked right outside the temple?!

[Waiting for the bride and groom to come out]

[These are some of my favorites from the trip]

Turns out my battery is dead. Like, gone to heaven. Not coming back. Brother-in-law Phil comes over to jump the car. Alex and I do a photo shoot because... well, the truth is I just look dang hot. That's all there is to it. Battery gets charged and it dies as soon as the car is on. We charge it again and Phil follows us to the nearest Toyota dealership.

The nicest of the 3 dirty mechanics hooks the car up to their computer while I go inside. It's over 90 degrees in the end of September. The weather down there is just mean.

I make the obligatory small talk with my new friend and notice a long print out spewing from the computer. "Uh oh, that's never a good sign" my new friend says.

**Side note 1 about a Prius: Battery. It's fabulous. Fabulously expensive. It works really well when it's new. Mine was 6 years old.

My new friend's friend comes in with the print out. "Oh wow" says my friend. "You don't have a charge."

I look up perplexed. I just drove over here and it showed I had 3/4 of my battery charged. Turns out my car is lying to me. *in a reprimanding tone* Bad Sprocket.

**Side note 2 about a Prius: Names. When I first drove it I felt like I was flying a space ship. It reminded me of the cartoon, The Jetsons. The Jetsons are a futuristic bunch. George works for Spacely's Sprockets. My car is named Sprocket. You have to name it something space oriented or futuristic. It's in the manual.

Get this. A new Prius battery in all its glory hold 274 giga-watts of power [if you'll remember, a bolt of lightning is 1.21 giga-watts... so there you go]. Mine was holding a mere 7. SE7EN. That's it! Poor little Sprocket! A quick zip of my AmEx card and 30 minutes of waiting in the air-conditioned dealership and we're on the road to the reception.

As we drove away, we said a thank-you prayer. Thank you not letting this issue happen the day before when we were late and driving in the dark. Thank you for helping the car make it through Fillmore and Beaver. Thank you to Phil for jumping the car. Thank you to my dad for helping me jump my car earlier in the year when I left a light on all night so I knew HOW to jump my weird car. Thank you to the Toyota Dealership in St. George who had a ridiculous Prius battery in stock. And thank you for air conditioning.

[At the reception...at the church. So many things to say but I will refrain]

We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Merrill, who have had their own bedrooms for 30+ years. Each with their own lonely twin bed. I gasped.

ANYWAY... their neighbor had the best yard ornaments I had seen in my entire life. We drove by at night and I made Alex promise to take me back the next morning before we left.

What a treasure trove!

[The fabulousness that is St. George lawn ornamentation]

The day after the wedding we drove back to Bountiful via a scenic route through Cedar Breaks. When Alex was little he called Cedar City "Cedar Cedar City". Isn't that the cutest? Looking back he wonders why no one corrected him. 'Son, it's just one Cedar' would have been too easy I guess.

It was a glorious trip. Lots of laughing and talking and singing together. It was so nice to be with Alex all day Friday and Saturday.

Ok time for bed. It's now 2:06.

The Living Planet Aquarium

When Alex and I first started dating in March we were so excited for all the fun things we could do in the summer. Tennis, hiking, REAL soccer games, Bee's games, etc.

One of the activities I was really excited for was The Living Planet Aquarium. I love aquariums. Alex has a tank with some not-goldfish fish that look like goldfish. I've named most of the them. Robert Redford has a serious crush on Big Mama. Fu and Manchu are brother and sister but do it all the time. There are others that are somewhat see through that I ignore because it freaks me out.

The aquarium is broken into types of water, we first went to the creeks and marshland.



The next section was the deep ocean. These jellyfish were SO cool. The aquarium had colored lights that make them look so awesome.



They had a penguin exhibit but those birds are so dang fast, they were just blurs on the camera and the glass was all finger smudged. We couldn't get a clear picture of them.

We were just in time for the sting ray feeding. I am not embarrassed to say I squealed like a pig every time the rays were get "excited" and breach the water. It scared me. All that flapping. Gives me the heebies. Alex was brave. But he's a guy... and a Marine.



Every aquarium has to have a nurse shark. They're so tame and boring though. There was a white tip shark in there but it swam too fast and our camera was too slow. It looked like a blur. I thought I'd spare you.


The obligatory arms length shot so you know where you were.


Just a couple random ones of just how cute we are!

I was saying something to Mara my niece. I kept it because he looks so good.


This weekend we're off to St. George for his younger brother's wedding. And yes, some of us are having a hard time that our younger siblings are all married before us.

Broken Beatrich's

When we're doing something involving teamwork, doing dishes, cooking, or just being funny, Alex and I call ourselves the Beatrich's. We spliced our last names to get the team name: Beacham and Dietrich. I've come to love the name and actually would love to get a dog or a fish or something that I can name Beatrix in honor of the relationship.

Although Beatrix isn't one of those old fashion names that everyone adores like Emma, Olivia, Sophie, Morgan, or Charlotte. It's more like Helga. Ugly girls have that name.

But the Beatrich's are broken. Poor Alex a few weeks ago spent 4 days in the depths of the earth at a trona mine. He had to check and refill over 500 extinguishers down there. Yuck! He found it takes a certain kind of person to work in a mine. He is not one of them. 4 days were 4 days too many.

He came home in one piece. His first day back on the job in Salt Lake, breaks his foot. He doesn't even have a cool story to go with it. That is just tragic.

He was walking down the stairs, his right foot stayed planted as the rest of his body started going left down the landing. Snapped his metatarsal. The ER doctor said he was going to need a screw, probably be off his foot for 3 months, hell fire and brimstone, years of walking with a limp. It was scary. 3 days later at the orthopedic surgeon's office we find out he's on crutches for 6 weeks, walking with one crutch after 2, no pins or screws unless he's a famous athlete. YAY!

Now me. I was in a severe car accident 5 years ago. Whiplash. Bad. Chiropractor fixed it but it started acting up on Monday. Now I can't pull up my pants, put on a bra, brush my hair, wash my body in the shower, reach for something on the floor, or reach for the phone without a yelp of pain.

Pain shooting down my tricep into my elbow. Lovely.

Alex was icing his foot laying on his couch and I was sitting there hugging my arm to myself so it would zap me, we started laughing at how ridiculous we looked. Partially immobilized and afraid to move. Before we're 30!

I thought you weren't supposed to feel this old until you were in your 50s!
Boo to feeling old and decrepit.

My Marine

Isn't he just the cutest thing. Of course this is when he was 18 but still.

Brag Session

I gave a talk yesterday in Sacrament meeting on the topic "Faith in Every Footstep". I focused on faith and the second speaker focused on the pioneers.

A member of the Stake Presidency was on the stand because he announced stake conference next month and to notify us that the presidency will be changed. Nothing too shocking, they've been there for almost 9 years.

I gave my talk about faith, how my parents are converts and I was a lazy investigator and didn't really gain a testimony until I went to college, how my sister had similar experiences and chose differently than I did, etc etc.

Let me just say I had a captive audience.

I am one of those listeners that if I'm not captivated I've got my head down, reading something or drawing or something else to hold my attention until the next speaker. I hate it when people get up there and just read. So I make it a point to just have bullet points and just talk.

So I talked. I welled up and shed a tear about my sister. I refrained somewhat from talking with my hands [I'm a TOTAL hand talker], and over all did fairly well in my mind.

Sacrament meeting is over and the Stake President tells the other girl [who just read her talk] how great she did and didn't say anything to me. I got hand shakes from the bishopric and was about to leave when the Stake Pres calls me over to him.

Get this...

He wants me to give my talk [shortened to a merciful 4-5 minutes] in Stake Conference next month. And since they're reorganizing the presidency I'll be speaking in the same meeting as Russell M. Nelson. Talk about pressure. Holy cow!

Evidently Elder Nelson sent the presidency out asking them to visit all wards and find a talk that will fit a certain criteria that he gave. I fit the bill.

How crazy is that?! I've met several members of the 12 and even some prophets thanks to my dad's work, but this will be the second time I've met a member of the Twelve on my own terms and not being introduced as someone's daughter. I'm so excited!!