I got a jo- ...nope never mind

About three weeks ago I saw an ad in the help wanted section for sales people at Wilson Diamond's. I had been on the job search for quite a while so I decided to give it a try. I went in for one of the oddest interviews on my life. Questions ranged from "If the clock says 3:15 what is the size of the angle between the hour and minute hand" to "Why do you think people were so outraged when Hitler started killing the Jews when just a few months earlier the Chinese government killed off an entire political party?"

Needless to say it was nerve racking but I held my own and I got a call back. The manager called and asked me to come in for another interview the next day at 8 am "oh a bring something to sell me." He added on the end. I went in the next day like asked and some him a puppy (not a real one).

Days later he called and said "You're a remarkable young lady and we'd love to hire you."  I was stoked!! starting salary was $10 an hour just for training and once you got to sales people averaged $14 an hour. The perfect job for Mark and I right now. I spent my first two weeks on the job in a back room learning how to grade diamonds. Much like the picture below. Most of the time it was just me and a microscope. I had very little personal interaction.

Finally on Monday (Presidents day) I went in to take the test. I did really well. The manager said "Wow you got almost everything right... you're fired"  Say what!?!? He continued "I really like you Kristin but you're too straightforward and you're very intellectual and the combination of those two make you very intimidating. We only have 90 seconds to impress our customers and I'm afraid you'll just intimidate them."...

I'm not sure why my boss found me intimidating, I really try to be friendly. How does he even know how a customer would react to me if he never gave me a chance to interact! Sure I'm intimidating to a microscope but give me some person to interact with before you make that judgement call!

Am I intimidating? Please let me know if I am cause I'm not doing it on purpose.

Modern Day Pioneer

We've all heard the stories of the pioneers crossing the plains barefoot in the frigid cold. It's not surprising that many of the ended up with frostbite. I'm sure that once they finally reached Salt Lake all they wanted to do was rest their weary feet. When I was a kid my family went on a little pioneer trek I made it maybe a mile before my feet were aching and I rode in the handcart the rest of the way.

That was the first sign. Over the years that foot pain would only get worse. I could hardly stand for 15 minutes with out my feet aching. So like most reasonable people do, I put off going to the doctor... for several years. I finally went last month. I just stopped by the health center to see a podiatrist and I was scarcely in his office for three minutes before he started naming my symptoms for me.

"You're heels hurt all the time don't they? 

And the only way to relive the pain is to wear high heels right? 

Also your feet are usually purple and sometimes you hands. 

Oh and when your feet get warm they itch and swell."

His accuracy was both impressive and creepy. He then proceeded to tell me that my heels hurt because I'm becoming flat footed, My feet and hands are purple because I have Reynaud's disease, which limits the blood flow and the feeling in my feet. And finally they itch when they get warm because I have frostbite. (I guess putting ice on them to stop the itching was a bad idea)

I could have figured I was flat footed since everyone else in my family is, and I saw the Reynaud's thing coming, but frostbite!? I thought that was reserved for pioneers. Trudging through the harsh winter with out shoes! In an effort to raise awareness about modern day frostbite here are some picture of my feet.

Ice Castles

List of things I hate about winter

1. Cold
2. Ice
3. Snow
4. The need to wear closed toe shoes
5. BYU doesn't have a spring break 
6. Mark disappears all season to be with his true love: Snowboarding :(
7. The heating bill
8. Impossible to keep your nose warm which leads to...
9. Runny noses and colds
10. COLD

Despite my spite for winter there are three things I do like about it:

1. Hot Chocolate
2. Snuggling with mark (when he's around)
3. Ice Castles

What are Ice Castles you ask? Well here are some photos of a trip Mark and I took to Midway, UT with his sister Audrey and out friends Jessica and Aaron. We had a lot of fun exploring these enormous Icicle-structure-things.

This is an Ice Castle

Here we are in the Ice Castle

Ice Castles are made by leaving the sprinklers on in the Winter

As you can see they are quite tall

Mark and Aaron decided to climb on them... and then we got kicked out.

Fishes and Finches Sound the Same

People mourn in different  ways after loosing a pet. Some people take it as harshly as the death of a family member. They go through all seven stages of grief (sometimes twice, just to be safe). Others, skip the stages and buy a new pet, name it "So and so 2" and continue on as if nothing ever happened.

After the lose of Swarley (the fish we only had for two days), which you might have read about in my previous post, Mark and I gave ourselves about two weeks and then decided we were ready for a new beta. We went to PetSmart to buy a fish. Our plan was to spend $3 max . . . instead we spent $100 on finches.

Just to clarify, this is what we went for:

Fish

And this is what we came home with:

Finch

I don't know how it happened. One moment Mark was standing next to me picking out a pretty fish, next thing I know he's talked me into a finch. They are Zebra Finches to be exact and despite my strong desire to name them La-a (pronounced "la dash a") and La/a (pronounced "la slash a"), we named them Darwin and Stella. 

We brought them home, Set up their cage and even planted some wheat grass at the bottom so we wouldn't have to change the newspaper constantly. At first I was not very excited to have to care for these two, but they grew on me. And then they layed eggs. They laid the first egg 2 weeks ago and for a while I thought nothing would happen. They weren't sitting on it, they didn't even show any interest in it. then they laid another, and another and today yet another. As of Feb 16 the count is four. At this rate I'll have a whole flock of finches, which is called a "charm." I'm not sure I'm ready for all of this! After all, I just wanted a fish!

Buried

What ever happened to global warming? One day Al Gore is predicting nice, warm sunny days then all the sudden a blizzard hits! Come back global warming, I miss you. Mark does not miss global warming because if there's one thing he loves more than me, it's snow boarding. So when we got a chance to go stay at a friends cabin in Beaver right on the ski run, Mark could not resist.

We drove to Beaver, and we started to drive up the mountain but it bacame apparent that we needed snow chains. So we went back down the mountain, attempted to put snow chains on for about 4 hours and then headed back up the mountain. By this time there was an all out blizzard on the loose. We made it most of the way up but couldn't get up to the cabin... so we hiked. Through snow that came up to our knees, we dredged up to the cabin. Like every treacherous trek there were casualties. The pioneers lost many, the Donner Party was devestated, we lost a life that was very dear to us. RIP Swarley. You were a good fish, even though we only had you for two days. We're sorry you froze into a fishcicle.

After mourning Swarley's death we began the difficult task of shoveling off the decks. Here is a picture of Mark shoveling through 6 feet of snow:

There was so much snow!!!

This was the view from our second story window.

Eventually we dug out way out of the snow and hit the slopes and it was a lot of fun, except you might remember that I am an AWFUL skiier. I went on the baby hills most of the time and the one time I tried something bigger I almost peed my pants.

The scenerey was beautiful!!

Our time in Beaver was a lot of fun. Freezing but fun. When we weren't snowboarding/ skiing we were playing Wackie 6 with friends and watching "How I Met You Mother." It was a great way to start the new year.

Our first Christmas Together

I'm dreaming of a Texas Christmas, just like the ones I used to know, where longhorns replace reindeer and Santa wears hunting gear and there's not a single flake of snow, oh no...

My family moved from Texas when I was 15. But although we left the state we really never left Texas; we brought it wtih us. So despite the fact that Mark and I were spending the hollidays in Vegas, it was still a Texas Christmas. Every year my family decorates our traditional Texas tree, which towered over mine and Mark's Christmas tree:

We chopped it down in the woods

It  was tiny,

When Mark and I got to Vegas we had gotten so used to out tiny tree that we forgot how big the Texas tree was (everythings bigger in Texas). It was a bit of a shock at first, but that's what a Texas Christmas is all about:

 

tinsel is for sissies we use lasso

and of course there's the lone star on top

Even our Buffalo got into the Christmas spirit

Santa and his longhorns came all the way to Vegas for us. He gave me a Texas cook book and the 3rd season of "How I Met Your Mother." He gave Mark my social security card (which read Kristin Romney BISHOP) and a bunch of fruit snacks. Sadly after Christmas we again had to return to Provo, but not after a an interesting stop in Beaver, UT. Stay tuned for that story.  

Gobble Gobble

"Family, isn't it about . . . Time." Well most of the time it is, but once a year around November family becomes about something much better . . . food. Thanksgiving might possibly be the greatest holiday ever invented. It's the only day when it's socially acceptable to eat twice your weight in mashed potatoes and drink a gallon of gravy. Thanksgiving of 2010 Mark and I went down to Texas to be with our family. We had so much fun.

We went swiming in the warm Texas weather

Hung out with our nephews

And saw the sights

Then we headed down to Frisco for a feast. Mark's brother, Todd, and his wife, Rachael, invited us for the big day. Delicious does not begin to describe the joy my tastebuds and tummy were feeling. I mean just look at the bir below. It is beautiful. Rachael did such a good job on it!

I don't think there is anything morebetter than a plate full of homemade food.

Except maybe dessert.

Mark and I made an iPie

The best apple product on the market!

After Thanksgiving dinner the universal American tradition is to take a nap but for some reason tryptopan doesn't seem to affect the children as much. They stayed up to play video games:

For those of you who don't know, my husband is the one whose feet touch the ground.

Overall Thanksgiving was a booming success! We had great food, good company and delicious desserts. We were so sad to leave the warm weather and family of Texas but alas Provo beckoned.

Markris

Getting married in Provo is like trading all your friends for one that eats all your food and accidentally punches you in the middle of the night. Once you're married your get shunned by the Single People's Coalition. No one invites you to parties or movie nights anymore, you suddenly become far too boring for all that. Luckily for Mark and I, one of my very favorite cousins got married right after us, and together we formed the Don't Hate, Amalgamate Club. For those of you who don't know Sara and Tyler, here's a little poem I wrote for their wedding:

Well ever since Sara and Tyler (or Syler) got married we haven't been so bored. Some of our favorite activities include making pie on a stick, hot tubing and watching Leonardo Dicaprio movies. 

 Yay for friends! After its foundation it seemed like everyone wanted to join the Don't Hate, Amalgamate Club. So bunch of people got married and suddenly we had friends again.  So here is a tribute to everyone in the Don't Hate, Amalgamate Club:

Standrew

(Stacey and Andrew)

Dandrew

(Dani and Andrew)

Suzoyd

(Susanna and Boyd)

. . . Now if only we could get Brielle and Kase to join