Spring Break

Both Sarah and I had our spring break the week before last.  We decided that we would try to make some memories rather than being busy with school and work all week.  We thought it would be fun to go for a bike ride together, and the secretary at Sarah's school had mentioned to Sarah that if she was interested, she could borrow a road bike from her.

I don't think Sarah anticipated the excitement of the department secretary, when she asked if she could borrow a road bike.  She was going to bring the bike to school the Friday before spring break so Sarah could use it over the break.  Sarah worked on some stuff before going into school that day and was surprised to get a text from the secretary asking her when she was going to be there.  When Sarah got to work, the secretary told her that she had been waiting all morning and that they were going for a ride.

Sarah was more than a little nervous because she had never ridden a road bike before (with shoes clipping her feet to the pedals), not to mention her concern for getting grease on her khaki work pants.  They rode around the parking lot for a little bit and then went the fairgrounds nearby.  Luckily, there were no crashes and no grease stains.  The only weird look Sarah got was from one of her students, as if to say what are you doing riding a bike around the parking lot?

So, with a borrow road bike and a goal to make some memories over spring break, we decided to ride the 9 miles to our church and back (18 miles round trip).  The weather was great and we had a blast (without any crashes).

 

  

 For the worried parents who are noticing the speed limit sign, I think we saw three or four cars in the hour or so we were on this road.  Sarah wouldn't ride on a road where she didn't feel safe.

The next adventure of our spring break was a trip to the eye doctor.  We were both down to our last pair of contact lenses, but didn't think much of it until we had some homemade Cafe Rio the week before.  I cut the jalapenos for the salad dressing, washed my hands and then took out my contacts for the night.  That was a bad decision, but not nearly as bad as the decision to try to put those same contacts in the next morning.  Needless to say, I didn't wear any contacts until getting new ones from our trip to the eye doctor. 

 

 We both got our eyes dilated, which made the drive home a little interesting.  Luckily, my eyes were dilated as much as Sarah's and we made it safely home, where we decided to show off our new shades.

The next morning, we decided to go out to breakfast at a local diner here in Norman, appropriately named The Diner. (It was featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" if you care to watch.)  I had heard about it from multiple people at school, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We felt a little bit out of place because it seemed like every other person in the diner was a regular. It seemed like everyone else was greeted with something similar to the following: Hey John, how are you today?  Coffee, toast, sausage and two eggs, over easy?
Despite feeling like fish out of water, the food was great and we enjoyed feeling like we were going back in time to an old diner.

 

  

 After breakfast we went for another bike ride, this time riding about 21 miles.  Sarah didn't think it was fair that all the riding shots were of her, so the close up is of me. 

  

 We finished the night with a trip to the temple for our ward temple night. 

 

 Sarah also painted some more of her holiday blocks as a spring break project.

  

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Relief Society Organization Reenactment

This last Thursday night, the Relief Society in our ward decided to do a reenactment of the first meeting when the Relief Society was organized in March 1842.  Sarah was asked to be one of the original members of the Relief Society (Elizabeth Jones), while I was asked to be John Taylor.  (For anyone who is interested, there is a script available online from an LDS blogger, taken mainly from Eliza R. Snow's notes, which our ward used.)

We had been asked a few weeks in advance so I decided to do a little research to see if I could find a portrait of John Taylor relatively close to this time period.

Thank you, LDS.org:

 

After a trip to the local Goodwill and a little bit of time with a razor, we were ready to go:

 

 

Here are some other pictures from the meeting, taken by a member of the Relief Society presidency:

  

 

 Sarah said that since I look kind of like a leprechaun, I could keep my new neck beard for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow.  

(I wasn't sure what to think when nobody at school on Friday said anything.  Either they didn't notice or they were too afraid to tell me how they really felt about it.  I'm leaning towards the latter.)

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Zoo Trip in the Drizzle

Since moving to Oklahoma, we have been introduced to weather we had never experienced before.  On Friday (two days ago), we were talking to Ben and Alyse, who asked about the weather.  We told them how a few weeks ago, the weather had gone from highs in the low 20s with wind chills around zero to highs in the 70s in less than a week.  They were complaining about the cold weather there in Virginia, but we didn't have much to complain about as Friday was a wonderful day, with highs in the mid 60s and plenty of sunshine.

Then we woke up Saturday to our favorite type of new Oklahoma weather - drizzle (essentially like a mist, or tiny drops of rain).  You can't really tell that it's drizzling (if that's like raining) - it just feels like there is a lot of moisture in the air.

Since we hadn't done anything exciting for quite some time (hence the lack of blog posts and boring sentences about being busy with school in my mom's weekly emails), we decided to take a trip to the zoo.  Apparently, drizzle is the best weather for going to the zoo if you don't like crowds and prefer to see active animals.  There may have been fifty people in the zoo, but we didn't see more than twenty in the few hours that we were there.

The lions were out and about, walking around instead of just lying in the sun like they had been every other time we'd gone to the zoo.

  

Even though you can't tell from the picture, it's drizzling so that's why Sarah is wearing her hood.

 

The most entertaining animals of the day, however, were the primates.  A few of the gorillas came up and pounded on the glass where we were standing, as if to make faces at the humans for a little role reversal.  Then all of a sudden, one of the gorillas charged at another with a scream and its mouth opened wide.  The attempted attack didn't last long as the largest gorilla of the group (the one lying down on the rock in the center of the picture) quickly intervened, tackling the attacker and taking some hair out of its back.

If that wasn't enough, we then walked over and watched the chimpanzees scream and chase one another around for quite a while trainers put out the food in their indoor enclosure.  We could hear still hear them from a couple hundred yards away as we went to look at the elephants.

Drizzle throughout the day on Saturday combined with an overnight freeze to give us our least favorite new Oklahoma weather when we woke up this morning - ice.  We laughed to ourselves about our conversation with Ben and Alyse as we realized that in two days, we had gone from a high in the mid 60s on Friday to a high in the 20s with wind chills around zero and ice covering everything today.  Such is life and the weather here in Oklahoma - so go out and enjoy the drizzle while you can.

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Puzzle

As I was looking through pictures after deciding to update our blog, I realized the lack of exciting things in our life, due to trying to figure out research ideas for me and Sarah teaching organic chemistry (which she hasn't used since she took the class at BYU so she ends up studying organic chemistry for more time than she spends teaching it).  

A quick story about Sarah teaching: I was playing basketball with some guys from our ward a couple weeks ago, and one of them is majoring in petroleum engineering.  I started asking him about school (assuming that he goes to OU) only to find out that is getting his associates degree at OSU-OKC (where Sarah teaches) before transferring to OU.  I asked him if he was taking chemistry and he said yes, and told me who his professor is.  He then said, "I've been meaning to ask you this.  The lead chemistry instructor there is Professor Brockbank.  Is that like your mom or your aunt or something?"

"No," I responded, "she's my wife."  (He had never seen her at school, only heard about her - only good things, I hope.)  We both had a good laugh about it, as did Sarah when I told her after getting home.

Anyway, back to the pictures (or lack thereof) that I found covering the time period from Christmas until now.  These were pretty much it - pictures of a puzzle of LaVell Edwards Stadium that my mom gave us for Christmas.  I hope she's happy to know that I actually did the puzzle and that it is still sitting on top of a dresser in our spare bedroom for all to see.

  

  

So, I put together puzzles, while my brother makes these.

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Christmas Trip

Since it's the beginning of March, I decided it's probably about time for me to post the pictures from out trip out to Las Vegas and Utah for Christmas.  In terms of taking lots of pictures, we didn't do a great job, but we were able to spend time with those we love.  

(Mom, I want to make sure that you know I love you a lot even though we somehow managed to visit and not get a picture with you.  I'm sure you're a little disappointed that I haven't been the best about taking pictures in general, and on this trip in particular, not to mention that it has taken me forever to blog, but know that you're the reason I blog, and I appreciate that blogging for you gets me to document what is going on in our life so that I can have a record of our adventures - even if there aren't many of them.)

First up on our trip was a visit to Wes and Lisa in Las Vegas, where we had the opportunity to do a little bit of off-roading in the 1945 Willy's Jeep that Sarah and her brother Tyler bought from their grandpa a few years ago.

  

  

We both had a fun time driving it, although it took a little bit more coaxing to get Sarah to drive off the road. 

  

Next up was time with Sarah's girl friends, first in Vegas, then in Utah.

  

 

Sarah with Papa , Nana and Grandma Purcell

(We also visited the Brockbank and Prince grandparents, but somehow forgot to take pictures with them.)

  

With some of Sarah's Purcell and Alter cousins (and some of her siblings)

 

We enjoyed a trip with my parents and siblings to the BYU Museum of Art to see paintings of the Savior - a highlight for me that helped me to focus on the Savior during the Christmas season and into the new year. 

(We also somehow didn't get a picture of the time we spent playing games with family, probably because I was being too competitive to remember to take a picture, even though I lost yet again to my mom in Othello.  I guess I've passed the point where my parents let me win - it was fun while it lasted.)

 

Right before we left for the airport, we wanted to get a "super cute" picture with Gwen, and here it is.

It sure was a lot of fun to spend time with everyone, even though the time seemed to fly by (just like it has since we got back to Oklahoma).  If you can't wait for our next trip to you, feel free to take a trip and come visit us.

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Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Rather than repeat our adventure from a year ago, we decided to ask for some help with taking our Christmas card picture this time around.  So, when Sarah's visiting teachers came by and asked if there was anything they could do to help, I told them, "Yes, you can take our Christmas card picture for us."  One of them responded by saying that her husband loved doing photography, so we decided to let him do it.

Little did we know that we were going to have a photo shoot similar to our engagement photos, minus the change of clothes.  I'm pretty sure he took more than a hundred pictures, but I will spare you having to look at all of them (plus we only had him send us a handful, since we were looking for just one).

  

  

 

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