Extreme Charades

The Wecker family plays Charades like no other family. I have been caught unawares before, but not this year. I had the pleasure of writing down one of the toughest clues of the night (no easy feat in this family). Pete drew my clue from the basket and had to act out the following:

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

After a valiant effort, including such creativity as "sex-pores" to describe the word explores, the five minute time limit was reached. My inflated pride was soon popped when it came to be my turn. I reached into the basket and drew out Pete's clue:

 

Legends of Shannara: Bearers of the Black Staff

I tried my best but we just couldn't get past the word "bearers". My clue-giving is not up to par with the rest of the Wecker family. After five agonizing minutes of struggling with syllables, my five minutes was up. So I neither helped nor hindered my team in the end. I was a bit surprised that the word Shannara was easier to guess than bearers, but what can you do. Maybe next year I will get this right.

Mud verses Dog

Who wins?

Complaint #2

I pretty sure that our neighbors are determined to get us kicked out. They are going to keep lodging complaints until we are forced to leave. Or maybe they have no other audience than the apartment management to display their talent with Hyperbole. The complaint this time was that we leave are bathroom fan (you know, that tiny fan we are supposed to use to prevent mold in the bathroom) on for "days at a time". I have no words to tell you how completely false that is. The only time that fan is on is when one of use is showering, so a total of maybe 30 minutes a day.

Sib Shout Out

To Graham, who is selflessly serving his country this Christmas aboard the USS Halsey. 

I have the most awesome brother ever!

The Very UN-Christmas Spirit

So yesterday Nathan came home with some surprising news; someone had called to complain about us as neighbors. Now, I have always considered myself a pretty good neighbor. I never throw parties, I never leave my trash just outside my door instead of taking it to the dumpster, I always pick up after my dog, and I try to water my neighbors plants when they are out of town. So I was just a little shocked.

It turns out the complaint was about loud music in the mornings. I realized then that I do in fact listen to music in the mornings sometimes, because I like to play Christmas music for my niece Lucy while I watch her. Are you allowed to complain about Christmas music?

(I realize our walls are probably thinner than I thought, and I can't really complain about someone being passive aggressive when I have a tendency to be passive aggressive, I just thought it was kind of a funny thing to complain about.)

Snowless

We're well into winter here, and I just realized this is my first winter without snow in five years. Growing up in southern California, snow was a rarity, but now I'm finding I miss it more than I thought I would. There's something about snow that makes everything seem pristine and new. Its so beautiful to see trees and houses covered in snow. While I will miss the new snow, I will definitely not miss icy sidewalks and stairs. I can tell you from experience, nothing ensures a bad day like falling down the stairs.

My Love-Hate Relationship with the Park

This is how Scout looks before a trip to the park:

This is how Scout looks after a trip to the park:

Why Mothers are the Best

We've just enjoyed a week of mother visits, and after all the fun outings, dinners, and shopping trips, the thing I love most about having them around is how much love and support I feel from them. Right now, with things being so uncertain and new, is the stability they bring into our lives.

So I just wanted to write a quick tribute to our moms; I hope that one day I will be as good of a mom.

Family fun in the rain

We had a fun opportunity a couple of weeks ago to have a free photo shoot with our wedding photographer, Scott Jarvie, in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

I understand most couples brought their kids, but since we don't have one yet, we decided to bring Scout. It was hard to get her to stay still, and it was a little rainy and cold, but I'm pleased to present our first ever family photos... well, official ones anyway.

The Simple Things...

I am reveling in having my very own washer and dryer right in my apartment. I can't even describe how satisfying it is to be able to do laundry barefoot :)

Portland: week 1

So here are some of the things that I've discovered about Portland this week...

People here are very eco-conscious. For example, the recycle bins are the size of normal trash bins, and the trash bins only go up to my hip. There are solar powered lights, and today I saw a solar powered trash can at the zoo.

Portland is known as "The City That Works". Regardless of whether that motto is outmoded, it does not apply to Nathan and me, for neither of us has happened to spend one minute of one day at work. In Nathan's case it is bureaucracy (he starts tomorrow, fingers crossed!). In my case, I have only been searching for 2 days, and so haven't really had an opportunity to cast a very big job net.

Here in Portland, everyone has a dog, so Scout is not all that special.

We found an apartment on day one of our search, so thats exciting. We move in tomorrow afternoon, or Friday. Its a lovely 2 bed/ 2 bath apartment in Beaverton. I most excited to have a dishwasher, garbage disposal, and laundry machines, which are luxuries we've lived without for a while now.

Here, people don't seem to think there is anything wrong with passing on the right.

Also, its been lovely here with three straight days of sunshine, although apparently it supposed to rain from Friday until next summer... not so sure how I feel about that yet.

Mostly I feel like we moved from limbo in Provo to limbo in Portland, but we'll see.

All in all, we are still very excited to be here, though of course we are missing all of our Provo friends.

A Job!

Nathan here, just to make sure that no one gets confused.

It is done. Kaiser Permanente has finally offered me the job that I have been waiting to hear back about since mid-May. After all of that time waiting I find that my reaction was closer to "finally" than to the level of excitement that I expected. However, we are very pleased that it has finally happened, and are in full swing preparations to move our little family to Portland a week from today. I don't know if it is a faux pas to talk about salary and things, but for any of you that are curious I will be starting at $45k plus a pretty nice benefits package.

It is going to be an interesting experience to live outside of Utah for the first time in my life. Well, the first time except for the 2+ years I spent in Peru, but that doesn't really count. It will be something of a new experience to not be able to safely assume that everyone I meet is either a member of the Church or is at least familiar with it. At the moment I think I like the rain, but that may be because we only get 20 rainy days a year, not 300 like we will be experiencing in Portland. It will also be the first time I have had to make new friends since junior high. Starting next week I will be having all sorts of exciting opportunities to grow. Yay.

Also, just a little note to thank Mike and Jen for being so helpful. They are going to let us stay with them while we find an apartment, Kelly is going to get to babysit our niece (which may seem like a favor we are doing for them, but I assure you that it is the other way around), and Mike has been my liaison with KP during this entire process. Very helpful.

Well, the next time I post anything, I will be an Oregon resident. Woot!

Waiting

So I think this pretty much captures how I've come to feel about being a server...

I mean, I try really hard to a good job, but sometimes it feels like the more you go out of your way to help someone (someone with really "specific" tastes), the more likely it is for you to be blamed, harassed, or just under appreciated (or under-tipped). Its not easy to hand toast your bread so it is just so while I have 7 other tables who need my help.

On the flip side, it is wonderful that there are people who are patient and kind, and seem to understand how busy you are. People who understand that if you are getting a discount, you give a tip based on the un-discounted total not the discounted one, and people who understand that compliments, as kind as they are, do not count as tips and do not pay my rent. 

I am however, looking forward to the day when I can say goodbye to being a server, even though I mostly like it. Besides, if I wasn't a server I wouldn't have met Nathan :).

Our First Family Campout

So on a random weekday, Nathan and I both had the night and the next day off. "What should we do with our free time?" we asked ourselves. The was the usual, which is pizza and The Office, by the way. But I'm happy to report that we decided to do something we have always talked about doing... camping trip!

We were able to have Travis and Christine over to our campsite for s'mores, and I'm pretty sure this was Andie's first experience with camping, but she was a trooper (not even a little bothered by the campfire!).

Scout had a little bit of an adventure too, in the form of her first experience with cows. There were several cows grazing as we crossed the bridge to the campsites, and Scout, like the fierce little puppy she is, immediately perceived a threat. She charged toward the cows, barking the whole time, and chased them all the way down the lane and across the river, despite the fact that they could step on her and never notice.

After the cows were safely across the river, Scout patrolled the area for more threats and found one, in the form of a giant tree stump. I don't know if she thought this was another cow or simply a new danger, but we could not get her to stop barking at this inanimate piece of dead tree.

The fearsome three stump

Scout vs. tree stump

Needless to say, it was quite fun, even though the cows got their revenge but coming into our camp at 3am and startling me half to death.

Costume Craze

So I get really, really excited about Halloween. I think that is because its the first really holiday in months. Nathan... well not so much. So I've been trying to bully him into picking a Halloween costume so we can dress up together. My original plan was Link and Princess Zelda, but then I started doing some research and  discovered how awesomely cool it was possible to look as Link and Zelda.

So now I don't want to be Link and Zelda unless its possible for us to look that convincing.

Time for a backup plan...

Robin Hood and Maid Marion? Ghastly Lord and Lady? 20's Gangster and Flapper? Or should I just give up? I mean, Nathan already thinks I'm overly excited about this holiday anyway...

Hello World!

Hi everyone. My dear wife has decided that we need to do everything in our power to imitate my brother and his wife... so it is time to start a blog! We don't yet have a cute baby to be writing and posting about, so we will probably be posting mostly about our cute puppy. I know... it is the best we can do.

If anyone actually reads this to get news about the two of us, I would like to mention that I still don't know anything about the job in Portland. "But Nathan," you say, "it has been nearly 5 months. How can you not have any new information?" All I can say is, "good question." I'm convinced that if the HR department of Kaiser was the minority party in the senate, they could hold a filibuster till the turn of the next century, but I digress. I assure you all that as soon as I have news I will inform everyone via every form of communication that I have readily available (ie. I will send a mass text).

The only other news to report is that Kelly and I are currently in our second week of training for the 2011 Top-of-Utah marathon. Just 37 weeks to go. Unless I give up after our run tomorrow morning, which is a possibility.