India Fest 2011

We (somewhat) recently had a lovely evening at Spanish Fork's annual IndiaFest. The curry was decent, the literature was inspiring (we lean vegetarian), the temple was beautiful, and the music and dance were fantastic. They had a stage set up at the bottom of a hill where we were able to watch Indian dancers, which was so fun. I love Indian dance, and if I could find a class in Provo, I'd take it. There were displays set up all around the temple to educate us on all things India, random caged animals, like parrots and llamas. 

It was a little chilly, but luckily we were able to warm up in the overcrowded, incense-filled temple. I'm not a fan of incense (even though it reminds me of Jerusalem and all the old churches we spent hours in), but it was better to hang out inside anyway since that's where the music was. Actually the reason we were even at IndiaFest in the first place was to support the band, of which Kimball's former Kung Fu instructor of ten years is a member. This guy's not only a martial arts master, but he plays in a traditional Indian band and a traditional Irish band. Such diverse interests and talents! We actually went and heard him play with his Irish band the week prior at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, which we have no pictures of, sadly. It was pretty great though, and hopefully we can go back next summer. Anyway, back to India. In the temple, they were calling people up to bless them and put a red dot on their forehead, and the band had everyone get up and dance around in a big circle. Kimball and I just sat on the side, for fear of being converted unintentionally, but we did chant and sing the hare krishna songs along with everyone, one of which was stuck in my head for days. So cultural. 

By the way, why have we shortened the word festival? Is it just me, or is it a great word? There are so many fests these days and not enough festivals. Timpanogos did it right. I don't care what people say, I'm lengthening it back out. 

Thank you, India Festival! We had a great time.

July

The carefree days of summer are drawing to a close. Kimball and I have had such a fun couple months of being newlyweds, though, and it's sad to know it's going to get much more busy soon. I've become lazy with the camera, and even the camera on my phone, so I don't have many photos to show for the fun times, but the memories really are there. 

We went camping a few weeks ago with some friends, and had so much fun! I did actually take some pictures of that experience, so please enjoy. 

Our tent was so tiny, and so perfect. 

Okay, I know it doesn't look great, and that burned spot of cabbage
looks like a nasty bug, but these are the best tin foil dinners EVER.
Cabbage, kielbasa, carrots, turkey meatballs,steak fries and so, so much
more... Seriously, SO delicious. We were in charge of bringing dinner,
and I knew couldn't fail with these little guys. 

I love getting so dirty camping. My toes were nasty and black.

Okay, our tent looks big there in the foreground... see the picture below
to see the tent to scale.

Yes, it is oh so tiny.

campy me

It took us a while to fall asleep, because we kept laughing
at how funny we looked with our sleeping bags cinched
up around our faces. 

So silly.

We have done many other fun things, and have spent time with some wonderful people, but have no pictures to show for it. We had some lovely guests from Scotland, with whom we hiked and went to the farmers market, we went to Syracuse for the weekend and enjoyed some amazing food and had so much fun with Kimball's brother and his family, we played with my family at the Roy water park, and had such a fun weekend in SLC with said family and cousins. We spent a fun evening in the canyon with friends and made chocolate peach cobbler. We went to our very own water park, which is right next door to our apartment building, attended a bunch of wedding receptions and showers, had some dear Jerusalem friends for dinner, house-warmed another Jerusalem friend's home, Kimball got a new job doing Internet security for Provo-based Qualtrics (good work, baby!) and Kimball and the guys at his other job (BYU's Computer Science Security lab) won a nation-wide hacking contest (good job, again, baby!) Such an awesome husband have I. He works so hard, and it kills me that he's working two jobs, when I can't even work one (being Canadian and without a green card... this will change in the next few months). Anyway, we have had so much fun, and we are just loving life. It feels like a vacation everyday... after Kimball gets home from work. This post is much too long to be enjoyable, but it's working as a journal for me, so I refuse to apologize. So, continuing on... Some other fun things I happen to have snapped pictures of include the following:

We made massaman (a thai peanut curry).
Yes, be proud.
It's complex, and so perfectly yummy.

I made fresh raspberry limeade, which was
just delightful. And I'm loving my little
pitchers from Brooklyn!

My new kung fu kicks

Explanation: My dear husband, a black belt kung fu master, convinced me to get a pair of these shoes. It's probably wise, since he'll be teaching me his martial arts ways. (We just finished watching "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" In every fight scene I kept asking if he could do certain moves. I'm sure he loved it). Anyway, the shoes are called Feiyues (fay-yous) and I'm not exaggerating when I say that these are the only shoes he has worn for about the last ten years, besides church shoes on Sundays, and flip flops he got for our honeymoon. He goes through about 2 pairs in a year, and always has new ones on hand. He has three brand new pairs in our closet right now, one pair he wears, and one he goes running/hiking in. They're apparently super popular in China (that's where they're from - you can see thousands of them in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies), and among ninjas.

hc, jr.

The man in the blue shirt there is none other that Harry Connick, Jr. He was in Provo (who knows why?) and we ate at the same place (Sammy's) that night. I chatted with him a bit. Nice man. As for Sammy's (we had a groupon!)... won't go there again. Good food and pie shakes, but so unhealthy. It took many workouts and much water to feel good about ourselves again.

My new favorite toy! Thank you mama!

We got caught in a torrential downpour, and we are
soooo in love. 

tumbleweeds: a little video

LA - the last of it.

my last two days in LA were lovely. 

when i started packing up to leave on wednesday morning, i felt like i had done everything i wanted to do, and seen everyone i wanted to see... and then some. it was perfect. such a good feeling. 

monday was super relaxed. i went shopping with my friend kelly in camarillo. she found some shoes, but i came away with nothing. we drove home on the PCH through malibu, and it brought back many great memories of my mission. that's my favorite drive... when there's no traffic. 

that night kelly and brooke (the lovely ladies that i stayed with) took me out for dinner at the Gypsy Cafe on westwood. i loved it so much! they told me it was mediterranean food, but it was just completely middle eastern! they had falafel, shawarma, baba ghanoush, even hookahs! they also had the most amazing tomato soup ever. they were playing arabic music too, which made me so happy, and to my joy and surprise, one of my favorite songs (Nour el-Ain) came on halfway through dinner. i couldn't have asked for anything greater. it was so fun being back on westwood, where there's so much middle eastern culture, especially now that i understand it so much better. 

so much of what's written on the buildings is in farsi script, and since it's just about the same as arabic script, i could finally read it! what a great feeling. 

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the next day i went downtown where i met up with some of my favorite people, morena and gilmar. they took me out for lunch at a little el salvadorian restaurant (that's where they're from). it was so good! i had forgotten how awesome pupusas, empanitas and empanadas are. 

about an hour later, even though i was so full, my friend jose (as seen in previous post) insisted on taking me out for lunch again. this time the food was honduran, like jose. he's such a sweetheart. he gave me a little english-spanish picture dictionary, so i can improve... yeah, it's gotten that bad. it was funny trying to communicate. my spanish got increasingly better as the day went on, but it seems to have gotten much worse. thank goodness for my new dictionary. he also gave me these pictures: 

he had them taken to send back to his family in hondruras, so he made copies for me and the other sister i taught him with. i think they're awesome. 

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that night i met up with jonas. he's awesome. we went out for ice cream and he told me all the latest ideas he's come up with. he graduated from film school a few years back, and now at the tender young age of 25, he's already writing scripts. he's got 2 or 3 completed, or nearly completed i think. they're all pretty good too. he's just writing and researching, and will make it big in no time i'm sure. he told me he'll take me to the oscars one day. and i made him promise to include me in his thank you speech when he wins one day. 

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well, it was sad to say goodbye to LA.

it was so nice though, to feel like i had had such a perfect trip. nothing went wrong, and all i had to be frustrated with was the horrible traffic on the I-10 as a result of the victory parade for the lakers on wednesday morning... i was a little sad to return to provo, but as i came into utah county, i was welcomed with beautiful rainy weather, and such a lovely rainbow. that made me happy to be home. 

i love that my mission is so accessible. i plan on taking advantage of that for the rest of my life. 

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