My Very Own Bachelorette Show

One of the beautiful benefits of making my blog private is I can now be more open about all my dating dramas! Aren't you so excited?

At the beginning of this month, I had my very own bachelorette show going on. There were four bachelors: LA-Mike, Texas-Ken, Patrick, and Springville-Mike (aka SMike).

#1 LA-Mike came on fast in January. I met him at the Fire & Ice mid-singles retreat over New Year's Eve. LA-Mike even flew out to Utah over Martin Luther King weekend to visit fiends and take me out on a date. We ended up going out on two dates that weekend. He really impressed me. A lot. I'll admit, his fast-comings-on was a little much on New Years Day, but I quickly converted after seeing how direct he was, how much he seemed to like me, and how impressive he was. Sadly, he weeded himself out. I haven't heard from him in more than two weeks.

#2 I met Texas-Ken at the same midsingles retreat too - but very briefly and then I never saw him there again. Through a coincidental circumstance, we reconnected via my old hairdresser and Facebook. He immediately friended me on Facebook and sent me a message asking for my number and for a time when he could call me. Well it didn't work out to do so until February 9. We chatted for only a few minutes ... and ... I'm not feeling it. We're not a match. So I'll be weeding him out if he calls me again.

#3 I also met Patrick at the midsingles retreat. We went snowshoeing and cross-country skiing there and spent a good portion of the gala dancing in the same group. He asked me out for a weekend in January but the roads were terrible because of a winter storm warning and he had to drive down from South Jordan ... so he cancelled and asked for a raincheck. Well, he made good on his raincheck for February 9 even though there was another winter storm warning that night. But.... that date was a group date with all his friends .... not the best for a first date, but it was fun and he is nice.... and I didn't really feel like it was a match but the jury could be still out. I doubt I ever hear from him again, so consider him weeded out.

#4 SMike was a blind date set up by my old stake presidency counselor (from back in my single stake days in Provo). We went out on the blind date on January 24 and he scheduled the whole date over email since that is all the contact information for me that Pres. Mecham gave him. But at the end of the date SMike didn't ask for my number so I thought that was done - even though it was more pleasant than I expected it to be. But he surprised me by emailing me saying he wanted to take me out again. The first attempt to take me out again was a little rocky, but he made up for it with a fun geocaching date on February 8 (starting to see a pattern here? all three of these guys had to do all their business with me on the same weekend: February 8-9! That was a busy weekend). Since then he's been in touch with me nearly every day and we're going out again tomorrow night. So he is the last bachelor standing!

SMike might be the last bachelor standing, but our date tomorrow night is only our third date (maybe fourth - if you count the 15-minute Banff Film Festival intermission date we had. ha ha!). So the jury is still out on him ...

I'm really glad this bachelorette show has simmered down. I was beginning to make demands that if I had to endure all this dating drama that a marriage had better come out of it! But now I'm not demanding that to the same degree since the drama has gone down. Yay!

Annual President's Day MTB Weekend

Great friends + red dirt + blue skies + warm weather + knobby tires + 5 rides + 42 miles + 3700 feet climbed + lots of giggling + side trip to Zion National Park + too many of Jenn's "chest" photo ops = just what the doctor ordered.

A Sasquatch Valentine

Saturday before Valentine's day, Wendy and Kendra and I went snowshoeing up the right fork of Hobble Creek Canyon. We totally saw evidence that Sasquatch (aka Bigfoot) exists! Checkout that foot/shoe print next to my snowshoe! Holy frijole.

And then I ate two of these lovelies in honor of Valentine's Day - one at class on Tuesday night and one on Valentine's day so I would have one to eat while my student employees ate the ones I bought for them. The ones they ate had a personalized message on them: "My Little Crony". That is one of my favorite references to my student employees. :)

Aerials & Skis

I had a crazy night with Dave Dean, Levi, and Wendy at the World Cup Aerial competition at Deer Valley. The aerials were amazing! The second-hand marijuana smoke ... definitely added some excitement to our evening. We were so silly that night and then so hungry afterward.

The aerials were followed by another day of cross-country skiing at Granite Flats campground up American Fork campground with Kendra and Wendy.

Random Weekend Stuff

Last night, Janie took me to the play, "A Philadelphia Story" that was showing at the Pioneer Theater on the University of Utah campus. And since we were going to be in Salt Lake City for the play, Janie wanted to stop by the Home Goods store up there. She bought a bunch of stuff and I ..... bought one massive mirror for my bedroom. It has to be over six feet tall and it's a leaner! It's meant to sit on the floor and lean against the wall. Getting it home was kind of exciting, we had to put the backseat down and lean the mirror between the two front seats. :) I love the frame except that it is white, which doesn't really fit in my room but I figure I can spray paint it next summer when the weather warms up. I love it. I'm so excited to have a long mirror!

Oh and I purposely took the picture like this so you could see my new polka-dot dress and red mary-jane shoes that I bought last weekend for my birthday shopping trip.

And... I just had to document the beautiful blue skies and warm weather we had today: it was 43 degrees today!!! Lately, even 32 has been feeling warm compared to the teens we've been having for so long now. We've also had a terrible inversion and some crazy fog too. So the blue skies were a sight for sore eyes. But it was short lived since we have a new dusting of an inch or two of snow already tonight.

Baby Quilt for Old Roommate, Jen

My old roommate, Jen Curry Hodnett, is pregnant with twins .... a boy and a girl! So Janie and I threw a baby shower for her and we also combined forces and made baby quilts for her babies. We used the same pattern for the quilts but different fabrics. I made the quilt for the baby boy! Check it out below: 

Office Birthday Fun

My office upholds the tradition of celebrating each others' birthdays elementary-school-style: where the birthday girl or boy brings in his or her own favorite treats for the office ... if they want to. But! Everyone else gets the joy of decorating the birthday girl or boy's workspace. So I came into my office with it decorated with balloons, streamers, confetti, stars, cat posters, and this beauty:

The funny story behind this image is this: Every year my vice president puts out a calendar with our mission, vision, and values in it with images taken by BYU personnel. When last year's calendar came out, I refused to hang it up in my office because of this image (nearly....there was another image that grossed me out). I mean, can it get funnier and more ironic than this? The image totally represents accountability, right? As in, "You're gonna be accountable like this fish was when he messed up!" Ha ha! So I hung up this calendar in my student's bat cave office and apparently they saved this image to hang up in my office to celebrate my birthday. I had to preserve the fun of it for all generations to come.

Oh and the cat posters .... that was another joke. I am not a fan of cat posters and I have been very vocal about it since my student editor and I had a discussion about the phrase, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." I wanted to use the phrase in a training and since she loves cats, she edited it out of the script .... but I put it back in after a funny conversation with her. :)

The rest of my birthday was pretty awesome: friends for dinner and dessert at the Awful Waffle, shopping with Teri and Jen Hansen, a date or two with Mike M., cross-country skiing on MLK day (post coming up next), and a relaxing Sunday.