Holy Cow!!

We just had an earthquake! Granted, little ones happen a lot down here, and I don't ever feel them but this one was different. It was a 5.8 out in Chino Hills which is about 40 miles south east of where we live. I was standing in the bathroom and I heard a crashing sound and I thought that our upstairs neighbors were just being noisy again but then our shower door started to rattle and the building felt like it was rolling. In my head I was thinking "What is going on?...Oh no, an earthquake! Get in the doorway, Emily!" I ran to the doorway and just stood there panicked watching the closet door swing back and forth for about 15-20 seconds. It wasn't a violent shaking, just a gentle rolling and it made me a little dizzy, kind of like being sea sick and I could hear the building rumbling. It was a pretty scary experience though because I no idea where my hubby was or if he was safe or if I was going to need him to protect me and take care of me. He was going to go out to lunch with his team today and it was about that time but he could have been at the office still but I just didn't know. So I think that's why I was scared, because I was alone and didn't know if Brent was safe. I also didn't know if it was a warm up to something bigger or if my building was going to all of a sudden fall into the earth. Lots of exaggerated panicked thoughts because I've never experienced this before. As soon as the closet door stopped moving and I felt that it was probably over, I turned on the news and got the details. I figured it wasn't an earthquake too near to us or things would have been falling off of shelves and the power would have gone out. I also immediately started trying to call Brent but I guess all of the other 12 million people in LA county were doing the same thing because I couldn't get calls out. After about 20 minutes, and hitting redial about 1,000 times, I finally got through to Brent. He is fine. He didn't seem as panicked as I was. He did say his building swayed for a few seconds. He's felt little quakes at his building before and he was with a big group of people. I'm so thankful that we are safe. And I'm thankful that no people were hurt anywhere, and that the aftershocks have all been 3.8 or less. It was a good feeling to know that if it did get bad enough or close enough that we were in danger, that we have our 72 hour kits (Thanks Mom & Dad Gray!!!) and I have a good friend that lives around the corner.

Man, that really freaked me out! I think the adrenaline has finally worn off. Looking back it wasn't that bad, it was just my first experience and I was home alone. Who knew you could have so many thoughts in just a matter of a few seconds? Anyway, long story short: earthquakes = scary. But we're fine.

And we're off!!

We are going to be in Utah until early, early Monday morning! I'm sure we'll have lots to post once we get home. Don't miss us too much! :)

Our luck ran out...

We have a little bamboo plant that we bought when we first moved here to Studio City back in June of '05 and I noticed yesterday that it is pretty much dead now. So sad. Bamboo is supposed to signify luck, so now that our "lucky" plant is almost gone, does that mean our luck is almost run out too? That could be bad.

I am NO good at keeping plants alive. I'm not sure why. I always make sure it has enough water and the tag said it can survive in any kind of light. Hmm. I am the opposite of a green thumb. What would that be? A red thumb?

Anyway, this little plant started with 4 or 5 stalks and has slowly been dying off and now the last little guy is barely hanging on for dear life. Here are some sad pictures. Hopefully someday when we finally get a house with a yard, I will get better at this whole plant thing. Either that, or Brent will just have to do it all. :)

And so it begins...

For those of you that don't know yet, we found out about a week ago that Brent passed the exam he took back in May. So with that news and the fact that it's now mid-July, we are back in "study season" again. He will be taking exam 6 at the end of October so we are 15 weeks away, not that either of us are counting down already. :)

Yesterday, Brent took his first paid study day off of work. I am so proud of him. He woke up early and studied pretty diligently all day long. I believe he said the final count was 8.75 hours. Go Brent! There's no way I would have that much will power to stay focused all day. Especially if my spouse was home. Brent gets to divide up the 100+ hours of paid time from work into how he wants so this time, instead of taking the afternoon off a couple of days a week, he is going to take the entire day on Wednesdays. It should be pretty good. I just need to make sure that I have enough stuff to do that doesn't involve using the computer or needing to go into the bedroom a lot so that I don't interrupt him. Yesterday, I went downtown with a couple of girls to buy fabric. I have a feeling that is going to be a pretty common Wed activity. Good thing the stuff is cheap!

I'm always so amazed that Brent has the stamina to keep taking these tests every 6 months. He studies upwards of 300 hours for each one and 2/3 of that time is after work and on the weekends. 5 down, 4 to go! What a guy!

Good luck, Bubs!

Classic!

This is a clip from the 1972 musical, The Man of La Mancha, starring Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. I like to think that I am a connoisseur of old, classic musicals thanks to both of my parents, but I had never seen this one before! How did I miss it!? Brent suggested it after hearing The Impossible Dream on our Tabernacle Choir CD and we watched it over the weekend. It's really funny in an "old 70's musical" kind of way. I suggest it to any of you who like musicals. I loved it! Thank you, Brent!



After watching that, I now have a hankering for some of my other favorite classic movies, so I added them to our Blockbuster queue. Lucky for Brent, he starts studying again this week so he won't have to be subjected to all of the spontaneous singing and dancing, unless of course he wants to...

Here is a list of some of my favorites (musical & not) that I plan on watching in the next few weeks (they are all linked to either a trailer or a clip so if you have time and/or are interested, click away!):
Taming of the Shrew, 1967, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton *one of my all-time favorite movies, EVER!!*
The Great Race, 1965, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood *another one of my very favorites*
Camelot, 1967, Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave
The Music Man, 1962, Robert Preston, Shirley Jones
The King And I, 1956, Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner
The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1964, Debbie Reynolds, Harve Presnell
State Fair, 1945, Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews
My Fair Lady, 1964, Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954, Howard Keel, Jane Powell
A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1999, Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Calista Flockheart, Christian Bale
Much Ado About Nothing, 1993, Emma Thompson, Michael Keaton, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, Kate Beckinsale

I could watch these movies a thousand times and they would never get old!!

The Answer Key

Ok, so that was pretty fun. We got some good guesses. :)

Here are the real answers with some long-winded explanations & some pictures:

1 - FALSE - Brent served in the Rio de Janeiro North mission from Jan '00- Dec '01. He had a great time and has lots of amazing stories and a few scary ones involving guns and railroad tracks. He also met one of his best friends while they were serving as companions in the MTC and later on in the field. *Side note: this same friend ended up marrying Emily's sister a few months after we got married*

2 - TRUE - Emily's mom and step-dad have live in Fresno, CA since she was 5 years old. She has been exposed to lots of fun and interesting "country" activities including, but not limited to: driving a tractor, riding horses, raising cows, planting (but ultimately failing at) a garden, car races, BBQ's, fishing, camping and all kinds of diesel truck related things. Now that we're married, Brent gets to experience these things too!

3 - TRUE - Emily's first car was a multicolored 1993 Ford Escort, affectionately named Spidey. Pretty soon after we began dating, Emily got tired of having to be the one driving all the time so we decided it was time for Brent to learn to drive a stick (his parents sold theirs right before he learned how to drive). We would go to high school parking lots and practice on their Driver's Ed tracks and soon thereafter, Brent was the main driver. We sold good ol' Spidey 8 months after we got married, but at least for that year or so, Brent could drive us places.

4 - FALSE - You would think since the rest of our courtship was so "BYU" that this would be our story, but ours is much more awesomer (yes, we just said that...). Anyway, Brent had an internship in Washington D.C. for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics the summer of 2003 and after spending hours and hours on the phone every night, we decided that Emily needed to fly out for a visit because 3 months was way too long to go without seeing each other. So she flew out for the 4th of July (her favorite holiday) and we did all sorts of touristy stuff all weekend. For the 4th we decided to watch the fireworks from the Jefferson monument but when we got there, Brent said he wanted to walk through the FDR memorial first. So we started walking through it and Brent got all nervous and weird and Emily was all sticky and sweaty from walking around DC all day so we took a "break" and sat down. Brent paced around for a few minutes and then as soon as no one was around, he started being all sweet and saying how he felt then got down and one knee and popped the question. There was some crying, some kissing and a gorgeous ring. Woohoo! Then we quickly made our way down to the edge of the river, sat down and then the fireworks started. It was awesome! And Emily had no idea because Brent had tricked her and gotten all of her family to lie to her since she thought he wasn't buying the ring until he got home in August.

5 - TRUE - When we were picking a date for our wedding it was either going to be the 19th or the 20th but we decided that a Saturday would work better what with the end of finals and moving and cleaning checks and all. We didn't realize until after we were set on the 20th that it was the same day as our first date the year before.

6 - FALSE - Not even close in fact. The first few days of our honeymoon were spent in a fantastic cabin up in the Utah mountains but then we flew to Houston a few days before the reception down there. We found what seemed like a great little extended stay place close to downtown but when we showed up, it didn't seem like we got what we had paid for. After a brief freak-out upon check-in, we decided that since it had a nice bed, a clean bathroom, a VCR with movies and a full kitchen that's all we really needed. To get to downtown though, we had to take buses. So for Christmas Eve, we got all dressed up, headed out to the Galleria, had a fancy dinner, shopped a little then decided we better head back before the buses stopped. We got on, what we were told was the right bus, then realized about 25 minutes later we should've been there already so we talked to the driver and he said that we weren't even close but that if we got off at the end of his line and caught this other bus, we'd be back on track. WRONG! We got to the other bus stop and noticed that we had missed the last bus by about 15 minutes so we decided to walk. We kept calling our hotel and telling them where we were and asking if we were headed the right direction and we were assured it would only take a few minutes. I don't think they understood we were on foot. So we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, etc. We finally got back to the hotel, sweaty and blistered at about 11:30pm. We think we walked between 5-6 miles. But we survived and we weren't mugged so we just laughed it off. We later found out that had we just walked from the Galleria, it was only maybe 1 mile. Ugh!

7 - TRUE - Both of Brent's parents grew up a few streets from each other in Holladay, UT their whole lives but did not officially meet until they met in college. Little did they know, Emily's mom was only a few more streets away. This fact we didn't realize until after our wedding reception. And as it turns out, our grandparents even kind of remembered each other. Small world!

8 - FALSE - NOT even a little, and might we say, GROSS! So obviously by this point you've probably figured out that we are Red Sox fans. The short version: We both really like baseball, Brent always goes for the underdogs (which they were for so long), Emily pretty much just thought they were cool, Boston is awesome, and now they've won the World Series twice since we've been married. Go Sox! We think the Dodgers are pretty good too. We finally got to see the Sox play when they came to town this summer for some exhibition games with the Dodgers as seen in the pictures below.

True or False?

So, we (mostly Emily) decided that it is time to jump on the bandwagon and start a blog. Maybe now friends and family that we are really bad at keeping in touch with will be able to see what we've been up to.

To start it off, here's a list of things about us, you decide what you think is true or false. For those of you who know us really well, this should be easy. For the rest of you, just think of it as a learning experience! :)

We'll post the answers in a few days.

Have fun!

1 - Brent served his mission in Rome, Italy.
2 - Emily learned how to drive a tractor when she was 9 years old.
3 - Emily taught Brent how to drive a stick shift.
4 - Brent proposed to Emily on top of Y Mountain at sunrise.
5 - We got married on the anniversary of our first date.
6 - We spent our 1st Christmas Eve in a lavish suite in downtown Houston on our honeymoon.
7 - Our parents grew up in the same neighborhood.
8 - We are big Yankee fans.