Back to Provo

Yes, I know it's been a long time. I'm not going to apologize, just expect that we'll blog once a month and no one will be let down. :)

Megan and I left Iowa on August 14, 2009 around 4 PM. It was good to be heading west again. We stayed at my grandma's house in Lincoln and this time Edward was a much better behaved dog. He was so funny when we showed up at her house. It was nighttime and so he started growling and barking at her. Hahaha, oh Edward, it's just Grandma!



We stopped in Denver and then made it to Salt Lake. It was good to see the mountains again. I'm definitely a Western U.S. sort of dude. We stopped in Boise at my buddy's parents house and we slept out in a tent in their backyard. They aren't dog people and Edward would probably die if we slept inside, so we brought a tent and slept with him. Dang dogs!

We drove the rest of the way to Anacortes, WA and loved it. People make fun of the eastern 2/3rds of Washington, but it's really pretty. Lots of vineyards and apple trees. Seattle traffic is nasty, but you get married so you can drive in the HOV lane on I-5 during rush hour, right?

Anacortes is a beautiful little town. We saw some really pretty places and I can't wait to go back!

Pictures anyone?



Deception Pass is so wonderful!

We also went to Seattle and visited Pike Street Market. Yes, it's touristy, but everyone should go. We saw a huge dog there:



Did I say big dog or freaking huge dog? I forgot.

We also visited the Oregon Coast which is beautiful, but cold and windy. Megan and I drove back from Lincoln City up to Tillamook (the cheese town) and then through Beaverton and Portland. So beautiful. I love Oregon. Then we drove back to Utah.

I forgot to mention that we had two oil changes in 12 days. We drove from Davenport, IA to Pittsburg, KS (where we got our oil changed) and back and then from Davenport to Anacortes, WA (another oil change). The dealership sent us a card saying "Isn't it time for your 60,000 mile service?" Hahaha. Nope! We had 70,000 miles on our car! I'm glad we'll end up in Portland. No more driving 3 hours every weekend to prevent insanity. I'm so happy to be back in Utah and back in the West.

Well, there's our update. Hope everyone is happy!

Chi-Town!

Alright, so I promised that we'd talk about our Chicago trip and you also see that neither of us have gotten around to it...until now! :) Well, here it goes!

A little background for you, my dad grew up in Chicago Heights, IL. For those of you who don't know, it's a South Side suburb. Since I am living 3 hours away from Chicago, I thought it would be cool to go with him and see all the places important to his formative years (schools, churches, White Castles, etc). :)

So my dad flew in from Kansas City and went with Megan to the John Deere Harvester Works in East Moline. If you ever find yourself out here, take a tour of the Harvester Works! It's so cool to see how huge $300,000+ combines are made! So they loved seeing that.

Then I got off work and Megan and I drove my dad all around Davenport for a quick tour. Upon arriving home, we watched a little TV. My favorite part was my dad making some joke about the President and then turning on the TV and guess who was speaking? Haha.

So Saturday morning, we drop the dog off at the kennel and start driving to Chicago. My favorite part of that morning was stopping in Princeton, IL and getting breakfast at McDonalds (yes, the McDonalds that is separated from the Wal-Mart by a cornfield, that McDonalds). Megan was frustrated because they didn't have a menu before you actually got to the speaker and took a little longer to order than ordinary small-town folk. Then the Cokes we ordered had some Coke on the outside of the cup. Megan mentioned this to the lady working the drive-thru window and the lady responded, "Yeah, the cups are sweating a little, you know." Since when does sweat turn brown?

Anyway, we got to Chicago and headed straight for Chicago Heights. Dad took us to his high school, Bloom High, which is even older than my 102 year old Jordan High. We went into the gym and found out that Bryant Young of the 49ers came from his high school! Here's a picture.



We also went to the church and were able to get in because of people doing family history research. Dad told us about his first project after getting baptized when he 12. He went around and raised money for the flag pole in front of the church. That flag pole is still there. Also still there? Some furry, padded chairs and golden plate room dividers, here are more pictures.


We at lunch at White Castle with its famous sliders. They were pretty good. They were 48.8 cents each if you bought 10. I'd pay 48.8 cents for each one, but I think 61 cents (the normal price) is a bit high. I enjoyed them and their fries were good. I think my favorite part was the older lady behind the counter with the thick Chicago accent. I heard my dad's accent come back while at White Castle (never heard it before!)



We saw the houses that Dad lived in and he lost all street cred from living on the South Side. He lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but I'd rather he be from a nice neighborhood than what we experienced driving from Chicago Heights toward Midway Airport. If you ever find yourself in Chicago, I'd recommend never going to or through Phoenix, IL (just a little north). What I learned is that you can tell who owns the houses in a certain neighborhood by the grass. Yellow, dead grass? Government housing! Yellow/Green grass with a few weeds? Rental Properties. Green grass that's been mowed within the past 10 days? Owner occupied.

We drove past a Costco and had to stop! Dang Quad Cities doesn't have a 7-11 or a Costco, so we enjoyed going to Chicago. We were lucky enough to find this Costco because it sells the Ice Cream bars dipped in chocolate and almonds. Megan loves them. The Costcos in Mililani, HI and Chicago, IL sell these wonderful bars. Here's a good representation of how happy Megan was:



We checked into the hotel and took the shuttle to the MTS (train/subway) station. We rode it downtown and walked to the townhouse of my dad's classmate. Her daughter was selling snowcones for a fundraiser. Megan and I really enjoy urban living, but it was totally foreign to my dad. He lives in a town of 16,000 and is surrounded by fields.

Another of dad's classmate talked about Chicago's desire to host the 2016 Olympics. Being from a city, I don't want a corrupt city like Chicago getting such a special privilege. However, my city originated the whole corruption for Olympics scheme, so I couldn't say anything. :)

For the rest of this trip, my planning was inspired by the music video and lyrics of Kanye West's "Homecoming." Watch it if you've never heard it before. I love it. So we went downtown and saw the big bean in Millennium Park along with a billion other people! We went the road the train to Chinatown and walked around. It's not very big, but it smells/looks like Taiwan. I enjoyed the clumps of what used to be cardboard boxes that had gotten rained on and decomposed.

While this Chinatown feels authentic, it seems like everyone there speak English and has lived in the US for at least 2 generations. No one cared that I spoke Chinese (I probably speak it better than some of the kids there!), but it's the best Chinatown in the US that I've been to.



Next, we rode the train back downtown and started walking to Navy Pier. We walked a while and I wondered why we hadn't hit the lake yet. As I crossed the bridge over the Chicago River, I figured out that we were heading south and not east!!! Dang I felt dumb. Fortunately, as we turned around I saw a bus with the words "To Navy Pier" on it. Haha, not so bad. We hopped on and gave our feet a rest.

Once we got to Navy Pier, I was so proud that I hadn't ruined the surprise for Megan--fireworks. Navy Pier has fireworks every Wednesday and Saturday during the summer. I was hoping that we'd be standing around and they'd start and Megan would be totally surprised, but this dude selling tickets for a yacht yelled, "Fireworks Cruise! Last cruise of the night!" Oh well, Megan was still happy and we enjoyed the fireworks. One word to future visitors of Navy Pier: go to the end of the pier to get a better view. We enjoyed them, but getting closer is better!

A couple pictures:




All in all, I really enjoyed Chicago. This was one of my favorite vacations and could see us living in Chicago someday (not right out of school, but if the opportunity presented itself). Too bad Illinois is corrupt and has high taxes (12.5% sales tax on prepared food!) and all that, but I think its a great town with a lot of soul.

Well, that's it. A long post. I have some great news for a future post plus details of yet another trip we just took, but all that will have to wait.

Thanks for reading!

Two Trips

Hey Everyone!

I want to write more, but sometimes it doesn't happen. I don't know why, I have plenty to write about. That means this post is going to be split into two.

Happy 4th of July a little late. You know what they say in Iowa: Knee High by the Fourth of Julio. :) OK, that's what quarter Mexicans in Iowa say. Enjoy this picture of Iowa's wealth from the field of dreams right outside the factory I work at. If you are from the Midwest, I hope you are laughing at that last sentence.



Looks like the corn is doing well, huh?

Alright, now on to something interesting. For the 4th of July, Megan and I went to Toronto, Canada! I know some of you might be thinking, "Canada for the 4th of July?" Well, yes, it was awesome! It was weird going to a foreign country where the national language is English. We arrived late on Thursday night and went straight to the hotel. We got a deal on a nice room at the Holiday Inn next to the airport on Hotwire.com. It's normally $100 a night, but we only paid $54! Not too bad, huh?

Toronto is a very diverse place. We saw Africans, Chinese, Indians (from India), and Pakastanis. I think I saw a few Canadians. :) It seems like Canada has become what America used to be when it comes to immigration. We saw the CN Tower, the Harbour, and Chinatown. This is the best Chinatown I've ever been to! We ate some good food there. I loved it.



My favorite experience was when we were eating lunch at a restaurant and some Chinese people next to us were speaking Taiwanese. I've never heard it spoken outside of Asia! It was really cool.

On the 4th, we went to Niagara Falls. I thought they were cool, but nothing life altering. I think the waterfall on Maui was cooler. However, watching fireworks at the Falls were really amazing. It's weird to think it was our first 4th of July as a married couple. What a way to start, huh?

Before we went to Niagara Falls, we stopped at a little town called Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario. It's mostly overpriced, but it's a nice, romantic place to walk around for couples. The ice cream at Cows (reportedly the best ice cream in Canada) isn't anything special, so don't get fooled. I think Ben and Jerry's is better.

The view at the lake is wonderful. You can even see the Toronto skyline on the other end of the lake.



On Sunday, we attended church twice. The family ward we attended in Mississauga, Ontario had 5 missionary companionships there: 2 Spanish, 1 English, and 2 Chinese! It was so diverse and the testimonies were great! We attended a singles' branch and it was more of the same: diversity and testimony. I really liked it.

That afternoon we drove to Buffalo, NY for our flight home. We had to eat the mango we bought in Mississauga's Chinatown before we got to the US and barely finished before arriving at the border crossing. When the Border Patrol guy asked us if we had any food items, we told him, "We have a bunch of garbage from the stuff we just finished!" Haha.

Overall, we loved Canada. Yes, its taxes are high and a bit different than our taxes here in the U.S. but at least their roads are nice and crime is lower than here. I never felt nervous in Toronto. They did have a garbage strike crippling the city which was pretty gross, but I've experienced worse living in Taiwan. I'd definitely recommend going. Yes, I know Americans make fun of Canada a lot, but it's really pretty nice and you might end up liking it too!

Well, there's a long awaited post. I'll let Megan post the next one about our trip to Chicago and on anything else she wants to comment. Thanks for reading.

Jordan

More Midwestern Fun

Sorry for not writing more often. Iowa is much more fun than I expected. We are lucky because Davenport is pretty close to a lot of fun places, so Megan and I often take weekend trips.

A couple weekends ago our mothers flew into Midway Airport in Chicago. Megan and I spent the day riding trains and buses all over Chicago and loved it. The highlight of our trip was visiting Lincoln Park Zoo in downtown Chicago. For those of you who don't know, Lincoln Park Zoo is completely free! Now, many of you may be saying, "I bet it's a ghetto place." Well, it's not. Much nicer than SLC's crappy Hogle Zoo for sure. We enjoyed our time there.

After the zoo we went to the top of the Hancock Building. We were on the 96th floor at a lounge with overpriced drinks. Everyone who goes up there is supposed to buy a $6 Coke, but we just took pictures and went back downstairs. The view of the lake and the rest of downtown was awesome. Here's a picture for you!




Overall, I think Chicago people are much friendlier than people give them credit. Many people just started chatting with us on the train or bus and a lady even helped us find the train station. We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant in a neighborhood a little north of downtown. I loved the neighborhood with people of many races walking their dogs or just strolling. The food itself was really spicy but I liked it.

After dinner we rode the train downtown and switched trains to get to Midway Airport to pick up our moms. Due to the fact that Chicago does have a lot of crime and drug use, there are very few public bathrooms. That meant I had to hold it from Bryn Mawr to Midway Airport (about an hour!) Once we got to the Midway station, I saw our moms and said hello as I hurried into the airport to use the bathroom. My advice? Make sure and go the bathroom whenever you have the chance!

After Chicago we went to Nauvoo with our moms. I had been before, but it was nice to visit. If you haven't been, the Temple just appears while driving through "downtown" Nauvoo. We got some good pictures there too.



The temple is to our backs when we took this one.

This past week we went to some sights closer to home. We traveled a few miles north to the town of Maquoketa (that's pronounced "Ma-Coke-A-Da"). Just outside the town is a state park known for its underground limestone caves. I would have never guess that such a place exists in Iowa.

We took our dog to the caves and loved going underground where it was cool and the water was clear. While we could have explored dozens of caves, we stuck to the ones with overhead lighting and didn't require getting on all fours (or stomachs) to explore. Walking on top of the hills felt a lot like hiking in the mountains and I loved it.

Another picture, I think dogs just love getting dirty.



And finally, after the caves we drove across the Mississippi into Illinois. We drove to a small town called Galena. Ulysses S. Grant grew up in Galena and now it's a tourist town designed to feel like President Grant's time. While it's pretty and very relaxing, I don't care about the shopping for girly decorations like my mom would. I'm so thankful that Megan doesn't care either! Instead we walked to a city park that overlooked a stream that runs through town. During that walk, we unleashed Edward who enjoyed chasing birds and being free. One injured bird couldn't get away fast enough and Edward made sure it wouldn't escape. Megan picked up the bird and I held Edward back much to his dismay as he watched his catch get away! So funny.

One final picture:



Galena is only a few miles away from the Wisconsin border and I had never been before. Another one to check off my list! 34 states down, 16 to go!

The weather has been wonderful! Not warm or humid at all. I forget it's June because it's cold in the morning. I doubt it will last forever, but I like it now!

Well, there's some of our adventures, hope you enjoy them!

Jordan

Iowa and Favorite Movies

Hey! We are officially in Iowa. I started at John Deere on Monday and am getting used to my new life in Davenport. Today I traveled to Dubuque, Iowa for work. It is a small river town about an hour north of here. It is a pretty little town set amongst hills along the Mississippi River. The rainy weather today reminded me of a trip to a Kelso, Washington which sits next to the Columbia River and frequently has rainy weather.

I enjoy going through these small towns because I find each of them interesting. Why does it exist? Why do people stay here? Why is there such a large, new parking structure in an old factory town on the Mississippi that isn't growing while Provo is in dire need of new parking and can never seem to repair its decaying curbs and roads?

Well, one thing I do miss are mountains! I know that Dubuque's hills sure help, but I need some mountains in my life! My supervisor at work is a self-proclaimed small town girl, and I am a definitely a West Coast boy. Oh and $1.49/gallon milk! I don't know why milk costs $2.30/gallon here, but it's cool.


Another new area in my life is the fact that we have restarted our Netflix subscription again after a break these past few months. Megan is awesome because she lets me pick a lot of what we watch. If you know me well, you know I haven't seen many movies. I find most movies really boring and predictable and a waste of time and money. However, Netflix lets us find movies we normally wouldn't be able to find.

Last night, Megan and I watched "Not One Less." It is in Chinese with English subtitles (which is good because their funky accent, lazy pronounciation, and sloppy tones make it hard to understand at times). I don't want to give it away, but it is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time! Then let me know when you've seen it so I can talk to more people about it. I really enjoyed the scenes where two Chinese people would argue and I would think to myself, "That's exactly how it works! It just goes in circles and the same things are said over and over!" I was also very honored to know that such arguments exist between two Chinese people and not only between a white person and a Chinese person! I wasn't being treated differently for being a missionary.

I love foreign films because the kids are cuter and the predictability is much less than an American film.

I've rambled enough, I'll let you go.

Jordan

Hawaii

Hey Everyone,

In case you didn't know, Hawaii rocks. Maui rocks more, and it rocks the most if you are married when you visit Maui. We had an awesome time and went to the top of a volcano, went snorkeling, hiked around and in waterfalls, cliff jumped, relaxed, ate good Hawaiian food, attended Stake Conference on Maui, and met some funny people.

In all, I loved it. I forgot what day of the week it was, didn't care about my grades being posted, and forgot 98% of everything I learned this past school year. :) If you are looking to go somewhere on vacation with your husband/wife, let me know, I found some cool spots.

Here are some pictures.




I jumped off this cliff, it's much taller than this looks.

I'll post more later!

Jordan

Hello Spring?

Well, I thought we welcomed spring last month. It was here, I just know it...it must have gotten scared. It's April 16, 2009 and it snowed yesterday and all night long. Just look at the pictures...


Hawaii is about a week away and I'm really excited! But, to tell you the truth, I'm more excited to go to Iowa. I know, I know, Iowa seems boring...especially when you compare it to the likes of a Hawaiian vacation...but it's normal life that excites me. I'll be with my husband (the best one in the whole world...yes, I'm biased) and we'll have our dog Edward.

We'll have a normal life of work, play, and no homework! I like simplicity and Jordan's grateful for that.

Life is pretty good when you live well within your means and allow yourself to enjoy what's right now, what's simple, and what's real. For a long time I was convinced that it was normal to allow the views of others to determine your actions but as I grew up I realized that that kind of thinking is exactly what gets America into a whole bunch of trouble. Why can't Americans be happy with what they have? Is there a rule that says you have to keep the "Jones" family as your best friend and best competition? Who ever said you have to keep up with them anyway? Screw the Jones' stuff...I don't need what they have and I won't let myself believe any differently. (Unless they have two+ dogs...then I'll have to convince Jordan that we do need what they have =].)

I suppose I'm done with my rant...and now, on to the glory...of NO CLASSES UNTIL FALL SEMESTER!! Well, I suppose that's not entirely accurate. I'll be taking an independent study course or two but it's nowhere near as intensive as getting up to go to class every day. I'm so glad I don't have homework and there are only four tests to study for. I'M ALMOST DONE! How glorious is that? And a vacation coming up too...what more could I want at this moment? ...maybe a chocolate orange...