RAIN, SALES AND LITTLE KIDS

Fall is upon us in all its bitterness and inconsistency. Although the weekend has been lovely every weekday of last week was showered with cold rain. The week before last the temperatures dropped quickly from a pleasant evening low of 60° to a chilling 30°. Bleech! We were piling the blankets on our bed when we realized that we paid flat fee for our utilities and could therefore afford to turn on the heaters, not like in our other place.

Life continues to be chalked full of work and school. I figure between the two I pull anywhere from a 10 to 12 hour day, 6 days a week. I keep hoping that I’ll be able to get a little ahead or that the translations or school work will be less time consuming but so far that hasn’t happened. I suppose it’s better to be too busy than to be bored.

My sanity is conserved by watching movies with Becca (we watch about six a week) and going out on the weekends. Friday night we went shopping for clothes and found one of the most amazing sales I’ve ever seen. Those who know me well know that I don’t like shopping but even I got sucked into buying more than I intended. Becca averaged buying things at 90% off. Now we just need to find a place to put all of these clothes.

Ashi was one of the cute little kids we got to play with at the birthday party we went to.

We also had the pleasure of going to a birthday party for my friend David's wife and oldest son. Joaquín turned three and got a gazillion toy cars for his birthday. I’ve never seen the little kid so happy in his life. As there would be more Argentine people at the party than American’s, I was worried that Becca would get left out but enough of them spoke English for her to feel included and enjoy herself. Joaquín, who until that point had scowled at Becca a bit, warmed up to her quite nicely at the party. We know that he warmed up to her because he attacked her while pretending to be a lion. In little boy culture that is a sign of acceptance. Becca is treating Evy, the mom, to a facial and a massage at the spa where she works. Makes you want to invite Becca to more of your parties doesn’t it?

Garit with fellow missionary Elder Petersen and some church members way down there in Resistencia

You can tell that my parents have a missionary to write to because their family letters are more frequent than everyone else’s. We miss you and hope that all is well with you.

MASSAGE AND PETROLEUM

This week home has been a good one. I got the first massage job that I interviewed for…yea!!! It will be a nice job to have. It is a newer place called The Seasons Salon and Day Spa. Ryan and I both get free services, and family and friends get amazing discounts. I am starting to get used to living in our new place. In other words it is becoming more and more like home.

I have to study for the nationals (a really big test...”the LSAT of the massage world”) that I have to take on Wednesday. Wish me luck…

There isn’t really anything else but those few things. Life is still good. I still enjoy being married and having such a wonderful hubby!!!

Oh yeah…I made my “famous” pie and it turned out wonderfully. The last time I made it, something went wrong…and I stopped cooking for a while since I was so frustrated. I have also been making Thai food which we have enjoyed. We also went to a Brazilian fest up at UVSC and got cheap food from Rodizios Brazilian Grill which we LOVED!!! I’ll let Ryan elaborate on that.

Here is my sweetums!

The Brazilian fest was fun. You’d be surprised to find out just how many Brazilians live in Utah. Even though it hailed and even snowed a little bit, there were hundreds of them out dancing and eating their grilled meat and sweet desserts and drinking their guaraná. I bought a Brazilian t-shirt. There are guys that go to my Portuguese 355 class that wear a Brazilian shirt almost every class.

Yesterday I spent two hours preparing invoices for my schools. Does anyone know if Quick Books is any good for keeping track of things like that? Preparing invoices drives me nuts. I make lots of little mistakes and end up having to reprint or redo this or that. It’s annoying to say the least. The good news is that I have work to invoice for.

This little cartoon basically shows what I end up doing. I think that it’s disgusting how dependent we are on gasoline. Tomorrow my geology professor (the one who worked for Mobile Oil for 15 years or so) is going to ask us whether or not there should be oil drilling in a national wildlife reserve in Alaska. I really want to give him a piece of my mind and spout my conspiracy theories about how the rich oil companies have kept the world from developing alternate sources of fuel but I’d probably get carried away and end up insulting him. Personally offending professors is to be avoided if one cares about grades.

Not to get too political, but I think that this cartoon shares a good message. If you don’t agree with something that is being promoted, DON’T WATCH IT, don’t buy the product or even the products from the companies that are sponsoring whatever it is that you find morally offensive. This is capitalistic America so if something doesn’t sell it will soon be forgotten.

We sincerely hope that all of you are enjoying yourselves and are well, where ever you may be. Till next week.

I'M BACK!!

My time in Michigan was wonderful! I miss my family a lot. It was wonderful to be able to hold 2 babies that you love soooo much. I didn’t get a picture that I really wanted though; I wanted all 4 nephews in my lap, 2 giving me kisses on my cheeks while I juggled the newborns. Richard and Jonathan got sick, so when I thought to do the picture, it was too late. Oh well, over Christmas I guess.

It has been fun trying to get back to normal life since Thursday. Ryan picked me up at the airport with a dozen red roses and then we went to Rodizios, an authentic Brazilian grill. We tried about 10 different varieties of meat. The drink was a pineapple and lime juice mixed with crème. MmmmMmmm!!!!! I highly recommend the restaurant. It is in Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, UT. In order to get the waiter to come around with delectable skewers of meat, you need to get the buffet. It is tempting to eat a ton from the buffet, but let me warn you, you will NOT be able to eat much of the meat if you do!!!! The meat is the best part!!!! Definitely try some stuff from the salad bar that look yummy…but only a bite or two of each. Trust me…you want the meat!! It is the best meat you may ever try!!

I have to get back into the groove of life. The day I got back I sent a resume out and had an interview the next day. I would be working at UCMT. I want to have a massage job on top of a regular job so that I don’t have to beat myself up doing massage full time. I don’t know if I want to work at the school quite yet though. Getting off for Christmas would be harder.

Rick showed me what acupuncture feels like. He put a needle in 2 points, then I put one in him, and then in myself. It was fun. He sent me home with a book, point finder and needles. I know acupressure which is acupuncture without needles. It isn’t hard to do acupuncture. I won’t be as specific as a professional, but what I can do isn’t harmful.

Our stake conference was wonderful today. President Monson presided over the meeting with Elder Wirthlin and Elder Samuelson. It was quite an enjoyable meeting. It was broadcast from the Marriot Center on the BYU campus. I really like the change in how stake conference is going to be from now on. I think it will be much more effective, and allow the brethren to become more real to us. Elder Monson was very personal, uplifting, bluntly honest, funny and informal. It was not your typical general authority talk, with that tone of voice that they all have. In better words, it wasn’t General Conference. Don’t get me wrong, I love General Conference!!!! But this was very much a fun personal time with an apostle. The message given by all three of the men was powerful, enjoyable and applicable to the people whose ears were in reach. I feel like I just had some one on one time with a friend...an enjoyable conversation. They are truly men of God. It was wonderful!!

Well, I hope you continue on to read all the wonderful things my sweet Ryan has to say:

I also enjoyed our Sunday meetings very much. I feel very good in our new congregation. A funny thing that always happens to me every Sunday is that I look for a friend of mine, who attends the Spanish ward, and end up seeing someone else that I know. This time it was my friend Matt Hill who is a talented member of my Spanish Translation program. Like most of the members of the program, he has no intention of being a translator.

I just received two family emails from uncles Jim and Greg so I’ll comment briefly on them. Greg, when I heard that you were going on a 120 mile hike out in Sierra Nevadas, I thought you were pretty nuts. I’ve been wanting to go camping lately but not that much. I’m glad that you’re home safe and sound in spite of your daring hobbies. Jim, I’ve had a cold these past couple days and I feel for you. I hate being sick, especially when I’ve got a lot to do and I’ve got a lot to do this week. Hang in there with your church service. Some of the most meaningful people who have influenced us all most positively have been church leaders and I feel confident that you are influencing many people for good. As an aside, I’d like to tell everyone that I’ve been saving all of the missionary and family letters that I’ve received for the past year or so. It’s my small way of doing family history.

School started for me last Wednesday and my first class of the day is Geology. Yep, I’ve been putting off my science GE classes and this semester I’ve decided to bite the bullet and take two! Dr. Nixon (no, I don’t think there’s any relation) worked for Mobile oil for about ten years before they paid him to go back to school and get his doctorate. He had some much fun getting his degree that he retired from Mobile about five years later and has been teaching for the last 15. He says that he’ll try to make the class entertaining, we start each class with someone telling a joke, and not to give us any “busy work.” My kind of guy.

Next I have a Brazilian culture class which will probably be my favorite. Most of our tests are written, as opposed to multiple-choice which I’m lousy at, and the professor and people in my class are a lot of fun. It’s been my experience that people who have spent time in Brazil turn out being a lot of fun. Maybe some of the Brazilian’s fun-loving nature rubs off on them. I have a sneaky suspicion that we will have an end-of-the-semester party in this class.

After that I enter a class of 200+ students. This Physical Science class scares me. I weaseled my way out of taking any physics in high school so I have no point of reference. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any chemistry either and that was my other option to fulfill this GE requirement. Physics is reported to have a lower mortality rate than chemistry and that’s why I chose it. I ended up getting an A- in biology three years ago so maybe there’s hope after all.

I end the day in my Spanish Translation class. My poor English to Spanish professor has undergone another surgery but has a higher wheelchair, which makes her happy. She informed us that our Spanish to English professor just tore both of his rotator-cuffs but we still have hope that he will recover in time to teach our class during the second quarter. Being a Spanish professor seems to be a little risky if you ask me.

I would like to call everyone’s attention to the “Links” section of this blog. Although I have not read it yet, I would like to encourage everyone to read Grant’s first chapter, which was recently posted on his blog, and give him some feed-back. I would also like to point out that, if anyone is interested, I’ll be placing a link to a movie trailer that I think is funny, noteworthy or not very well known on this page. As the name suggests, there will be a different trailer every week.

Well, I’ve prattled on long enough. We love you all and hope that you all are doing well. Thanks for your love and support, until next week!

A LONE MAN IN P-TOWN

As you all probably have deduced from her latest entry below, Becca has left me here in Provo to go help her sister Leah in Lansing, Michigan. She flew out last Wednesday and will be back this coming Wednesday. Having the bed all to myself has been strange as I have become very accustomed to sharing it with Becca. She has informed me, however, that although she misses me and has a hard time getting to sleep at night, she’s loved having a bed to herself again so she can stretch out at night.

On Wednesday morning we were cruising up I-15 to the airport thinking we had all the time in the world when Becca realized that we had left the house an hour after we should have. The next half an hour was a stressful one as I raced through traffic faster than I should have to try and get her to the airport on time. The only good part about this was the fact that it pretty much kept us from getting sad about how we would be apart for the first time in our 20 month marriage. I think this is the only time I can say that it was a good thing that the flight was about 30 minutes behind schedule.

Every time I think that I’m going to have extra time on my hands to get something done, I get tons of translations. Monday and Tuesday they came in like crazy and then a slow trickle of them came in right up to Friday. Although I feign annoyance, I realize that this is a blessing and an answer to our prayers.

My newest translator, Mauro, and I were missionary companions in Chile

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need help and have enlisted the services of my Argentine friend Mauro to handle the translations from my newest school. As my work load increases I will probably be hiring more people to help out. There’s only so much I can handle all by myself, especially when school starts on Tuesday (thank goodness for Labor Day).

My website has gone through another change and I invite you all to take a look. I’m hoping that the “References” section and the better format will facilitate more work. Since I can’t go to California, Idaho and all the other states I do business in, my website is really what represents me.

Becca and I have been keeping in touch during the week with the use of our web-cameras and microphones. In fact, Becca took her parents’ laptop to Rick and Leah’s house today where they were all having dinner and turned the web-camera on while I ate the meal that I had prepared. It was a rather strange family dinner. We talk twice or three times a day and I really think that it helps us not to miss one another quite so much. It’s not as good as having her here, but it will do for now.

Thank you all for your comments and for visiting this blog. We enjoy keeping in touch with our loved ones.

BECCA'S ADVENTURES IN MICHIGAN

The Tobey twins are home!

Well this week has been a wonderful!!!!! I’m in Michigan right now with my family. The only sad part is that my sweet, sweet hubby isn’t here with me! I can’t wait to see him again. The twins are doing wonderful. They are a delight to be around. They are the cutest little sweethearts. I am really enjoying being around all of my 4 nephews and helping my sister.

Three-year-ol Johnathan gets to be a big brother too

It is strange to be at my family’s home. It isn’t the one that I grew up in, so I feel quite lost around the place. I feel out of place. It has also been strange being without Ryan. My family has been around a single younger sister of a Becca for so long…that it isn’t that different to them.

Almost six-year-old Richard looks pretty spiffy in his new suit

My parents have seen me twice since the wedding, and my sister’s family has only seen us once since the wedding! Soooo I feel like that is how my life has always been, and that I’m not married, because I have seemed to have gone back to being the little sister who isn’t married. I hope that makes sense. I can’t wait to see my hubby.

Well, I have to go make dessert for dinner tonight. The babies were blessed today. I hope everyone is doing well.

Love ya lots!

~Becca