Good Ol' Bicknell!

Several weeks ago Libbey asked me if I wanted to join her and Jacob on a "business trip," I would be going and watching Jacob while she was at work. It sounded fun for me and I didn't have any other responsibilities yet, so I said that I would join her. We headed past Provo to a small place called Bicknell, UT...for those who've always thought that Toledo was small you haven't seen anything yet until you've been to Bicknell. I believe that the whole county is smaller than Toledo, but I could be wrong.

We went up Tuesday afternoon, grabbed some dinner, went swimming, watched a movie and then went to bed.

Wednesday Libbey had to go to work, so we all ate breakfast together and then she headed out. Jacob and I went swimming for awhile but then he really wanted to go back to the room so that he could watch Aladdin again (he had watched it for the first time the night before and really wanted to watch it again). So we watched Aladdin and then it was time for lunch. We all went to a diner (where they serve black bean pie? Sounds disgusting to me!) and then we took Libbey back to the clinic where she was working.

I had read some about the Capitol Reef National Park, how it was supposed to be really beautiful and that you could even pick fresh fruit. I thought that it sounded pretty cool and so we headed up there (Jacob got even more excited when he was told that there might be some horses that he could feed).

We were about 3 minutes from the visitors center when I looked back and saw this:

It kind of had made me laugh because Libbey had thought that he should be tired but he wasn't acting like it, but the moment I was silent and stopped talking to him for a few minutes he zonked out. I finally found where you could pick the fruit, it wasn't free like the brochure had said it would be and you had to park and walk into where you picked the fruit- I didn't really want to leave Jacob in the car by himself so I decided to just drive around and take some pictures of the area before it was time to head back and pick up Libbey. What a gorgeous place...I wouldn't mind going back sometime and camping or staying in a log cabin.

A Weekend in the City

Last weekend Andrea and I took our last trip to Taipei before going home, we had many things that we wanted to fit into this visit, in the end I'm not sure that we covered all of them but it was a memorable and fun adventure.

Isn't this gorgeous? This is what we get to see every time we go to Taipei, on the way up and on the way down.

Friday when we arrived it took us a little bit of time to find our hostel (there were three buildings owned by the hostel but we went to the wrong one first), but it was still early and we didn't really want to go to bed yet. It was really strange as we were signing in we heard the owners speaking Spanish, and we were both like we understand that. It turns out that the owners (used to be married or are currently married--we weren't sure) are from Mexico, well the guy is from Mexico and she lived there for 20 years.

We decided that we would go on a walk and find something to eat. We asked if there was a movie theater nearby and discovered that there was one only like a five minute walk away, we got something to eat and decided to walk over and see what they had to offer.

We had originally planned on coming Saturday night but there was one starting right then and so we decided to watch it. We ended up watching Letter's To Juliet, it was really cute and I would highly recommend it. I haven't seen any movies lately that I have felt the urge to buy but this is one that I think that I will buy when it comes out on video.

When we got back from the movie it was about 1 o'clock, our roomies were there (we got a woman's dorm room with 4 bunk beds and a private bathroom), they were from England and have been living there for the last year as they work at an English school in Taipei. They weren't the most talkative or friendly towards us, despite Andrea's attempt to ask them questions. They had no problem walking around in their underwear or leaving them out to dry though :(

Saturday was a very long day spent with much walking, shopping, talking, eating, and just having fun. We went to see if there was any other movie that sounded good but nothing caught our attention so we decided to just go home and get ready for bed.

Sunday morning we got up and ready before the roomies were even starting to get up, we left to go back to the Temple and stake center to go to church, it was really weird to hear everything in English and even stranger to pick up the hymnal and find it feel very heavy compared to the English hymnal. After Sacrament meeting we bundled all of our stuff and headed back to the train station where we had a little bit of a wait until our time.

Walking from our hostel to the MRT there was this little park that they had lots of animals made out of stones. I'm not sure what their purpose was, but they made for great pictures :D

Our "humble abode," Andrea and I both decided that this place is not what we would pick to live in for over a year, I don't know, maybe we are spoiled with our apartment but I would not be too excited with the prospect of living out of my suitcase for a year. This is the door to our room.

Looking in from the door, that door on the right is the bathroom, with shower and toilet. The shower was really nice--a lot bigger than ours and it actually has a little thing that separates the shower floor from the rest of the bathroom floor.

Looking from the bathroom.

By the end of the trip I felt kind of like a city girl, or at least that I could live in one if I needed to. I'm still not excited by the idea but I could do it.

Hello....Paul?

Since we were gone for 4 days on our adventures to Taipei I am going to break it down into at least 3 different posts so that you (and I) are not completely bogged down with things to read. This is part 1 of our adventures, or Monday.

Our train was supposed to leave at 1pm and we had arranged that if Yuling was available they would pick us up and take us to the train station. She wasn't 100% certain if she would be available so I wanted to be ready to leave earlier in case we needed to. I woke up around 8 and took a shower and did some cleaning of my room and finalized my packing. At 10 was my family phone call that we have every week, it was fun to be able to get on and not have to rush to class after 30 minutes, I ended up staying on for almost 2 hours and was able to talk to 3 of my brothers.

To be sure that we would have enough time to walk if we needed to I called Yuling's house at about 11:15, their cleaner/helper answered the phone and said that they would be able to take us, Joseph (Yuling's husband) would come around 12:30 to get us and if we hadn't seen him by 13:35 to call. Since I wasn't concerned about time I was able to talk some more with my family. I finished my phone call and asked Andrea if she wanted to try calling her family, by the time we were able to get her family on skype and get it all figured out she was only able to talk for 5 minutes but I think that she appreciated being able to hear their voices.

12:30 came and we still hadn't seen Joseph, I tried calling there house but the phone was busy, I tried calling the cell phones- one was turned off and the other no one answered. I was starting to get really frustrated and anxious, I knew that there was no way that we would make it if we had to walk. I kept trying to call the house and finally at about 20 till I got through, I was told that Joseph had been on the phone with his Mom and had lost track of time but that he was on his way now. We were outside waiting for him when he pulled up, he apologized and explained that he had been on the phone, he then proceeded to rush to the train, he was going really fast honking at people and zooming around them. It was quite entertaining to watch as just on Friday night Yuling was telling us how Joseph is not a angry driver, he always lets people go before him and takes his time while driving.

We got there and we still had about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but they were already lining up and getting on, so we quickly got into line and found our seat on the train. Andrea and I talked for probably the first hour or so, it was really nice to just have some sit down time and to talk with each other, the last several weeks we have had some tension building between us, I am not very good at expressing things because I don't want to hurt the other person or to make things awkward between us, but I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings even though I wasn't expressing them, so we were able to talk about it and other stuff and just make things a lot better and smoother.

After talking we both fell asleep for awhile until right before we pulled into Taipei. We got off the train and headed towards the other part of the Main Station where the MRT (Taipei Metro System or underground trains)) was, we first need to purchase our MRT cards (electronic cards where you put money on them and just scan to pay for your ride), I needed to pull money out of the ATM before I could get my card but I couldn't get the ATM to work finally I tried doing something different and I was able to get it to work.

I had written down the instructions on how to get to the hostel, they were a little confusing but we were able to figure it out and got there safely and with no real problems. We came to the door and buzzed up that we were there. We went to the 8th floor where the hostel was and walked in, I had made the reservation in my name so I was asked to fill out a little sheet with some information about myself, 1st problem…I didn't have my passport with me ("where did you come from?" oh we are working down in Hualien…oh ok--I think that I freaked her out for a 2nd saying that I didn't have my passport with me), it was ok I could just put my e-mail instead.

I finished filling out the paper and paid her, she said let me show you your room, She walked to this room that 2 sets of bunk beds, and told us that we would be using the top and bottom of that bunk. And then she said the worse words that I could hear "and this is your roommate…Paul" my first thoughts going through my head…please let Paul be a girl who had real mean parents. That thought was quickly dashed as Paul (very much male) got off his bed to say hi. I felt bad but I quickly asked "umm…do you have anything without…boys?" She told us that she was full but that the other dorm room had been reserved by two people and they had reserved the whole room, they were supposed to have already been there, she normally gives them an hour to call but that we could wait and see if they came if not we could have the room.

We both sat down on the couch, probably both silently praying for a solution, something that would not be against our morals and what we believe. After we had been sitting for a few minutes she said "you know Beth I do have one room that is available, why don't you come and look at it" she showed us a very small room with one double bed, we would have to share the bed, we didn't care we both very quickly said "we'll take it!"----Isn't it funny though? When I had first been looking at hostel's this room had been available but then when I went back to reserve like 20 minutes later it wasn't available and now it was again! (but we weren't going to complain, we weren't having to share a room with a guy possibly even two!)

Man after that story the rest of our week is going to look pretty tame :D The rest of the evening we went out and had dinner at the Taipei Main Station, a yummy Indian pita place and then went to watch a movie at the Breeze Center, we watched Valentines Day, we were lucky that it ended up not being R (they didn't have any ratings anywhere so we went in with faith that it wouldn't be rated R or be really bad), it had a lot of big name people and had a cute story line but there were several parts that I could have done without.

After the movie we quickly ran back to the MRT (we weren't sure what time it shut down) to get back to the hostel, we stopped at Family Life to pick up some snacks and something to eat for breakfast and then went home. We played cards on our bed for an hour or so and then went to bed.

Not bad for our first day!

AB Taipei Trip: The Hostel

The Pen Story

This movie is super cool, all the pictures they used are quite amazing. The time and effort that was put into this to tell the story--I wish that I had the imagination and talent to make something like this.

Cheesecake Yumminess!

Oh my goodness do I have so much to catch up on (blogging and otherwise), but of course I don't start way back where I should, I start with the yummy (literally) parts :D.
Friday night we were invited to attend a concert recital of Tiffani's (Andrea tutors Tiffany and Isabelle and then Vanessa goes to Owl Preschool). The recital was beautiful and it was fun to be able to listen to good music for a couple of hours. But after wards we were on our way when Vanessa's mom mentioned that she had cherry cheesecake, we thought that we would stop somewhere and eat it, but nope she took us home and when we got out of the car she handed us this bag (from Tiramisu, a cake company) and told us that we would like it.
We tromped upstairs and of course had to open it right away and take some pictures :D, it turned out not to be cherry but blueberry instead (I wasn't super excited about that part at first, but I have warmed up t it now). Andrea was super excited because cheesecake is her favorite. (I think that I already know what I will be getting for her birthday in February)
OH MY GOODNESS! It was so super duper yummy! We each had a piece while watching the movie Friday night, another one while we were watching the movie last night and I think that we may have snuck another piece in there somewhere. If you come to Hualien I would definitely recommend the cheesecake :D

We're just a little excited/surprised to be getting cheesecake (and plates) :D

You can't really see it but Andrea thought that the little forks that it came with were hilarious.

Notice how each slice is wrapped in it's own piece of aluminum foil? Yeah I wouldn't want that job.

Cereal Boredom

I used to work with Derek when I worked at the Canon Center on campus...I would say that someone was a little bored but it was pretty cool too! The things that people think of in happy valley :D

My Super Girl

I was looking up a movie clip to show on youtube yesterday for my afternoon class when this movie was suggested, it looked interesting so I decided to watch it. Though it makes me laugh a little I really like the dance moves and the beat.



and for those who are interested you can go here to get the English translation (if you are looking for a laugh definitely go there :D)

*Update: Today (Saturday) Andrea and I went to a big department store and we were in the electronics department when I all of a sudden hear the opening chords to this song and I look over and it's playing on the TV--they then played several other music videos of this group but I just thought that it was funny that I had just discovered the song this morning and then it's playing there.

Invisible Women

I was blog-stalking today and the blog that I was looking at shared this video, it is very true. Though we might feel that we are invisible to others, we are most definitely not to Heavenly Father.

Thanksgiving Commercials

Both of these commercials are really good, I almost expected them to say "Brought to you by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" instead of Publix. But still they are both very thoughtful and express completely what we should be feeling at Thanksgiving and everyday of the rest of the year also.

She Drive's Me Crazy

This movie with the Muppets makes me laugh---it's got a lot of hollywood people and Miss Piggy is just funny :D

Empire State of Mind

I DVR'd the American Music Awards on Sunday so that I could watch it later, I skipped over most of it, as I didn't care for the singer, dancing, or for the song itself. But I did really like this song "Empire State of Mind" sung by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (just ignore Alicia's dress)- it's amazing as you see that there are least 8 pianos and how strong her voice is when she sings. I have already watched it several of times and will probably watch it a few more :D

New Favorite Song!

For all of you that think that I am silly for listening/watching Hannah Montana that is fine, but you have got to listen to this song called Butterfly Fly Away, it is one of my new favorite's I have listened to it at least 100 times this week---it is so beautiful, sweet, simple and makes me want to cry.