Saturday is a special day...

On Saturday I finally finished the dresser that I was stripping and painting. I like the new hardware a lot. I am glad Gretchen was there to pick it out. Now that she sees that one she says she wants to do the other one. Hopefully it won't take me 2 months this time.
Our ballast died in the florescent light in our kitchen last week, so we have been eating in a semi-lit kitchen, relying on the light from the "living room", or 6 feet of space between the kitchen and the bed. We got a new light at Lowes. It looks better than the other one, but it also cost money. Home Depot and Lowes really had slim pickins, but I think it is a nice light and it is brighter. The apartment looks a bit better now that all of our clothes are in the dressers and not in open suitcases. Everyone come visit now.

New paint job (and some dirty laundry)

Old paint job

New light

Old light

The longest day of the year

Everyone thinks it's the summer solstice. But it is really the day we tried to help out Penny. Kiley needed to get from a birthday party at Seaside to her youth temple trip a couple of weeks ago. Gretchen and I woke up around 4:30 a.m. to go get Kiley from Seaside (about 4 1/2 hours from Redmond) and take her to Portland. I was very excited because it would be the first time I had seen the beach since before my mission. Turns out, we got there just in time to pick up Kiley at the beach house and whisk her away to the temple. All that separated us from the beach was one measly dune. A DUNE!!!! Gretchen drove the entire way to Seaside and then from Seaside to Portland. She wanted to get Kiley there on time, she said. Thus, I was bestowed the honor of driving home from Portland because time was not relevant. It is not fun driving all day to do nothing, but Gretchen and my spirits were still high due to the fact we would still get home on time to do something fun. I was enjoying the scenery of the Cascades as the low fuel light came on. It was the first time that I had noticed the gas situation. I thought to myself, "No problem, there will be some gas up ahead." We had just passed through a small town called Detroit. Surely there was gas before we were to go over the mountain pass and into Sisters.
Not.
I ran out of gas halfway between Detroit and Sisters. I was barely getting a signal on my cell phone and was trying to call Penny to come bail us out. At that point we were only about 45 minutes away from home. Either my calls would not go through or the person who answered the phone wouldn't be able to hear me due to the low signal. I don't think the digital network could handle a conversation. Finally a good Samaritan in a red Ford Colt stopped. A Drunk Samaritan. The girl who was driving was very nice, but the passenger had alcohol on his breath and was ENTIRELY CRAZY!!! There was another passenger and a lot of stuff in the back seat. The crazy dude was rambling on about how he was going to get a pack of cigarettes and stay with the girls while I was taken to get some gas. He said he just couldn't leave us there. After going on with me for about 5 minutes, I told him I would try AAA as Gretchen gave me a look like, "Make him leave, please." Pretty creepy guy. So I pretended that I got through to AAA and that a tow truck would come. They left. To make a long story short, we were lucky to have left Gretchen's cell phone with Penny, because the Nextel radio was the only thing that would allow a conversation since it isn't on the digital network. Penny came and on fumes we made it to Sisters and filled up. Luckily Penny has a DVD player in the van. It made the wait not so bad. Thus ended my first and hopefully last experience of running out of gas.

New glasses

I got my glasses on Wednesday and have enjoyed seeing things a little more clearly. I only notice that reading close up as well as far away has gotten better with them. I only have half of my prescription right now though.

Portland

Portland is probably the coolest town in all the Portland area. Gretchen and I just went there with Todd and Penny to go to our stake temple day. I thought that the pictures that The Church has of the temple don't do it justice. It is so green and beautiful all around it. Man, I feel like Kip after writing that sentence. As we got out of the temple, Gretchen and I agreed that we needed to start bringing our camera with us wherever we go.
Living with Gretchen's family is a lot of fun, but also very funny sometimes. We just got our appliances for our apartment last week. We were pretty dang excited. In celebration, we went grocery shopping so that we could eat by ourselves sometimes instead of always relying on Penny. The next day Blake(6) knocked on our door. After coming in I asked what he wanted and he said, Nothing." He then proceeded to open our fridge and freezer in search of something good to eat. Then he left. At the time we only had sandwich stuff, but later we got ginger ale. While we were gone one day he came and snuck one. We have started locking the door. Now I can't blame the pee on the toilet seat on anyone else. Carson(4) Is the opposite of Blake. Blake is a very picky eater and is always in search of junk food. Carson will say, "I don't like meatloaf." After you tell him just to try it, he will, and then he says something funny, like, "This is the most awesome thing I ever tasted!!!" That boy can eat.
The other day I used our oven for the first time and baked a yellow cake with home made chocolate frosting. While it was in the oven, Carson knocked on our door and told me it smelled like I was making something delicious. I guess you could smell it though the whole house. So occasionally the boys come in and eat with us. Today, Gretchen wanted to make waffles, so she tried to sneak the waffle iron upstairs, but Carson caught her on the way. Now we have little boys knocking on our door wondering when the waffles will be ready. It wouldn't be so bad, except now I have to get some pants on.

Bragging

When I went bowling with Dale and Ty, I totally nailed a 4-7-10 split(which is depicted in this picture where I did not pick up the spare). It was pretty much the proudest moment in my bowling career. I also scored a 219 in that game, my personal best. I attribute all the good fortune to it being my bachelor party and so the bachelor gods were with me.

The world as I know it is FALSE!!!

2 things I need some help on.

1.If you wanted a cone that was chocolate AND vanilla, would you call it a twist cone, or a swirl cone? If you are used to saying swirl instead of twist or vice versa, would you understand what somebody else was asking for if they asked for the opposite?

I went to the DQ to treat my new nieces and nephews to some ice cream cones and I asked for a twisty cone and the guy had to ask me 5 times what the heck I was talking about. After that I explained the concept and he informed me I wanted a swirl cone. Thanks for the help. Here's the next one:

2.Charlie/Charley Horse
How did you guys use this growing up? I don't mean the spelling. How would everyone define this?

I grew up knowing that a charlie horse was a cramp/contusion, but it was not confined to the leg. While growing up we used, or at least I think we used, the term to also refer to someone inflicting such an injury on somebody else, i.e., "You just gave me a charlie!". Punched in the arm, kicked in the calf, kneed in the leg. It didn't matter. I think Gretchen thinks I am nuts for ever thinking that everyone used it that way. I am not trying to prove her wrong, I am just trying to figure out if I grew up one confused child, or if my whole family grew up confused.

Colloquial or Crazy?

I like being clyde