Lightning May Not Strike in the Same Place Twice, But What About Trailer Hitches?

With the car packed and ready to go, Sarah and I stopped by Dollar Tree before driving to St. Louis for Thanksgiving.  Sarah needed a few hundred popsicle sticks for a primary Christmas craft and what better place to get popsicle sticks than the dollar store?  

As we pulled into the parking lot, there was a truck in front of us that had stopped right in front of the store.  Someone had just walked out of the store and got into their car, and said truck happened to be right behind this person's car.  Not realizing that we were behind them (and I think hoping to take the soon to be available prime parking space), the driver of the truck began to back up.

Unfortunately, I couldn't put our car into reverse fast enough and honking the horn was to no avail as the crunch told us it was too late.  We had become the proud owners of a trailer hitch dimple.

 

December came and went with no resolution from the truck driver's insurance company.  Sarah and I decided to go to an OU basketball game the second weekend in January.  On our way to the game, we stopped by Dollar Tree to restock on birthday cards since there were a number of birthdays upcoming.

As we drove from the dollar store to the basketball game, we started talking about the car and whether we would have the bumper repaired to just take the insurance money.  We pulled up to a stop light behind a truck in the left turn lane.  Then, inexplicably, the driver of this truck went in reverse, undeterred by our honking horn and gave us a matching trailer hitch dimple on the opposite side of the front bumper. 

 

Sarah and I couldn't believe the irony of what happened and laughed at our fortune.  Hopefully we have learned our lesson: Don't drive to Dollar Tree together in the Mazda.  Two dimples are cute enough.

Read More

Visit from Jennie, Quinn, and Delcie

Jennie (Sarah's sister), Quinn (Jennie's husband), and Delcie (their almost 2-year old daughter) came out to visit us between Christmas and New Year's.  The faithful readers of our blog know that whenever someone comes to visit us, we take a trip to the Oklahoma City Zoo together.

The first stop on the zoo trip was to visit the lorikeets and feed them some sweet, sweet nectar.

   

  

 

From there, it was off to the petting zoo with the friendly goats. 

(Although some of the goats looked a little scared with toddlers nearby.)

 

There were many different cats that were out and active.

  

 

And others that were out, but not as active.

 

One of the gorillas wasn't too impressed with the visitors, so he turned his back on us and gave us a show.

    

The elk showed us that to be happy, all a male needs is a ball.

  

  Last, but certainly not least, were the baby animals at the zoo.  

First was the baby rhino (I've also included a picture from a few months ago when Sarah went to the zoo with some friends where the mom and baby rhino had been rolling around in the red dirt.)  

  

Then the baby elephant, born only a few days before we were there.

Finally, the baby Delcie, who we were just trying to contain.

 

  

 We had  heard from multiple people that the science museum was really fun, so we decided to get an annual pass for Christmas.  Turns out, those people were right.  The science museum was a lot of fun.

 

 

Sarah even found her favorite room in the museum.  The museum has something for everyone.

Other highlights of their visit included going to the park, watercolor painting, and playing lots of games.  Delcie didn't like leaving the park (even though it was below freezing with a nice cold wind blowing) and cried all the way home.  Some parents, concerned about her health and all that.

   

 We also visited the Oklahoma City Memorial, which was lit up because it was later in the evening.  Visiting this memorial reminds me of how we can always remember the good and forward move despite any challenges we may face.

   

   

Read More

Christmas 2014

To get into the Christmas spirit we went with our friends the Cates to see the Festival of Light in Chickasha after celebrating the graduation of Cliff's sister Jessica from OU.

 

  

We had dinner on Christmas Eve with some of the other accounting PhD students and their families at the house of one of our professors. (I had him as an accounting professor at BYU and he was hired at OU this last summer.)  Everybody else took off once dinner was over and we helped with the dishes and then played games and visited with Erv and Joleen for quite a while.

It was weird to wake up Christmas morning and have it be just the two of us, since this was the first Christmas we have spent without either side of our family.  We enjoyed reading some of the Christmas story from the scriptures together and also opening our gifts.

  

Sarah's gift to me was a bocce ball set and I got her a Frozen bag from my friend Andrew's wife Katie's online store (she's an artist - check out her website).

  

Sarah wasn't feeling too good that day so she spent most of the day in bed resting.  A family in our ward had invited us over for Christmas dinner, so Sarah told me to go while she stayed home and got some needed rest.  We all missed her but we are glad that she recovered.

Read More

San Antonio Adventure

The week before Christmas, Sarah and I decided to take a trip down to San Antonio.  With Sarah starting her new job in January and only having so many vacation days, we knew that it would be harder to go, so we packed our bags and were off while we both had Christmas break from work and school.   The fact that we had a free night at a Marriott that we needed to use and friends to visit both along the way and in San Antonio made the decision even easier.

The first stop on our trip was Anna, Texas where our friends the Findleys moved last summer.  (Matt got his PhD from OU in psychology and now teaches at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.)  We spent the afternoon at their house (and at the park), playing with their two kids, Link and Ada.  

Link was really excited that his friends Bryan and Sarah had come to play with him and he didn't think his parents should get to talk to us.  ("But Mom, I haven't played with Bryan and Sarah for a long time and I don't get to play with them very often so I want to play with them.")

   

After spending the night at their house, we drove from there to San Antonio the next morning.  We had dinner at a restaurant on the River Walk, where a live mariachi band came and played a love song for us.  That evening we saw "The Lion King" Broadway at the Majestic Theater, which we both really enjoyed. 

   

The next morning we went for a run along the River Walk which had been lit up with Christmas lights in the evenings (not quite Temple Square but still beautiful).  We also took a river tour with Tony from Rio San Antonio Cruises.  It was a little chilly so the boat wasn't very crowded.

  

While still in downtown San Antonio, we visited the San Fernando Cathedral and the Alamo.

 

We then traveled to the other Spanish missions (besides the Alamo) in San Antonio.

Mission San José

  

Mission Concepción

  

Mission San Juan

   

Mission Espada
  

 

That evening we met up with our friends the Allens who moved to San Antonio last summer. (BJ started his PhD in marketing at OU the same time as me but moved to UT-San Antonio when his advisor went there.)  We stayed with them for the rest of our trip, where we enjoyed a good game night once the kids were in bed--BJ is still undefeated in Monopoly.  We're so grateful to have such wonderful friends who we were able to spend a little time with during this last minute adventure.

Our last day there we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns (named after the natural bridge seen below).

 

   

The final highlight of our trip was going to the San Antonio Temple.  The inside has such beautiful woodwork, not to mention the gorgeous stained glass windows.  

It is always wonderful to visit the House of the Lord.

 

      

  

 

Read More