Coming Home

Salt Lake City or Bust!!

I'll be home the night of the 23rd around 8:30 p.m.

Can't wait. Still not able to set a date for the wedding. I'm planning on being home for about 2 weeks, after which time we hope to have some word about Ray's interview from the embassy. So I may or may not be there longer than the 2 weeks.

So get prepared. I'm going to need lots of Olive Garden, Happy Sumo, Mi Ranchito, etc.

I'm hoping to make a quick trip down to AZ as well (bring on the cheesecake factory).

Did I mention that I love taking a vacation from my vacation ;)

Sea Foam

This weeks excursion took us to a little place called Creevy Pier. While probably not found on any tourists map it has some significance to me as it will always be the place where I first saw Sea Foam. I've always known that Sea Foam existed. I've heard tell of it from many sources but I was surprised to find that I had never in actuality seen it.

As we pulled up to the beach around Creevy Pier I saw all this white stuff collected around the shore and rocks. I asked Ray what it was (I was prepared to be outraged as I thought it was some sort of litter). He informed me that it was Sea Foam.

Notice all the white stuff caught in the rocks. This is Sea Foam. The picture (as I am clearly not a great photographer) doesn't do it justice but it was a highlight of the day for sure.

For those of you who are as ignorant as I. Apparently Sea Foam is created when there is a perfect mixture of sea and wind. The wind whips it up into some sort of frothy delight.



Also on our travels Ray found a little church where he thought we might discover some Elder's. So we put on our waterproof coats and headed out with the digital camera. We didn't find any Elder's but we did get soaked as the weather soon turned into a torrential downpour. We had to abandon our search as the weather truly got so bad that water was dripping off our coats.


Finally we went to a little place called the Donegal Craft Village. It's a place where lots of people who do native arts have little shops. There was a woman who was weaving on an actual loom. She made beautiful scarves, bags, etc. Then there was a place where they made glass jewelery and sculpture. There were many other shops but not all were fully opened due to the fact that it is the off season, I'm sure.

Final item of note- there was a little coffee shop where we ate our lunch. They had this brown bread that came with our soup that was truly to die for. So good in fact, that we bought a loaf to take home with us. I wish I could adequately describe the tastiness of said bread but sadly I know any description given here would not do justice to it's deliciousness. Instead you will all just have to come and I'll take you to see for yourselves.

Sugar Cookies

Ray is the YM president here in the Londonderry branch. Last week he invited the Young Men over for some food and X Box. We moved the couch around so that we could project the game onto our wall.

Here are the boys enjoying themselves and taking whatever soccer game they were playing most seriously.

I did my part for the activity as well. Over the holiday I had gotten from C.S. her world famous sugar cookie recipe. This was my first experience in using it but they were mighty tasty and I think that the boys enjoyed them almost as much as Ray and I did.

Here are some samples of how well it turned out.

This is an Ode to the love of my life (I think cookie is my medium).







Here is a picture of the finished product in all it's glory (Notice the green frosting in honor of Ireland).

Deja Vu

This evening Ray and I decided to catch a flick. We hit up the 11:15 p.m. showing of Deja Vu. As you can imagine I am not used to that late of an hour so I had a bit of a Diet Coke to give me the boost needed to get me through. That is why I am currently writing this post at 2 a.m. Doing my best to come down off the Caffeine.

I enjoyed the movie. It didn't change my life or anything but I actually thought it was rather suspenseful and tense in parts. So tense that I fear I gave myself movie whiplash. As evidence of this I cite a very stiff neck, which I believe is due to the total tightening of all my muscles for a prolonged period. Tense movie indeed. Or perhaps I just need to get out more.

Homesick

I've been suffering from some post Christmas, been here a month homesickness. Nothing drastic just a general bit of missing all my dear family and friends and the rocky mountains. Luckily I'm engaged to the most amazing man and to help alleviate the homesickness he made me a lovely tea (this means dinner) yesterday evening.

Here is a photo of our delicious mexican feast created especial (notice the Spanish accent) for me by Ray.

It was most delicious, satisfying, and very sweet to boot, of Ray to go to all this trouble.

He even provided a little guacamole delight with the help of our friends at Old El Paso :). The net result was that after the meal and the company I was feeling a bit less homesick.



Update on the wedding. Ray finally jumped through all the hoops that the embassy doctors wanted him to. He had to get a tetanus shot and another MMR because they couldn't find the records of his immunization. All of this was sent to the embassy on Wednesday and we were told to call the embassy on Monday. So cross your fingers and say a little prayer for us that we can finally set a date!!