Four score and seven year ago...

04.20: ...is the last time Cristy and I went on a run :( We're starting to feel as nonathletic as Damon always complains about ;) (Damon: we all know it's a facade Mr. Basketball.)

Well my Sciatica is completely gone (but now I have a cold and a cold sore) and Cristy has some great news about hers as well. She visited a Chiropractor today and he told her that her hip is out of place (the same thing she heard from her Physical Therapist) but he was very hopeful about her recovery. It is a very standard and routine injury and he knows exactly how to fix her! Yay! Now it will only take 30 visits to the Chiropractor :( But it's worth it to avoid osteoarthritis right?


04.22: For FHE tonight (remember that Cristy and I prefer Wednesday over Monday) Cristy and I watched some Yoga Videos we recorded off of BYU TV. We love our DVR. Here's why: 1.) it records shows for later, meaning I can go shopping with Cristy and watch the game whenever, so long as my mother-in-law doesn't spoil the result like over Christmas ;) 2.) we fast-forward through commercials, which gives us back precious hours to our day (minimum 15 minutes for a one hour show), and 3.) we can store hours and hours worth of shows for later viewing. Hence the 11 combined hours of Yoga shows we now have :) Unfortunately, I am still sick and only watched Cristy, and Cristy stopped 15 minutes in because the Yoga aggravated her Sciatica :(


04.27: This weekend Cristy and I got to go to a themed-potluck at church. Cristy and Jen Jensen (a friend from church) hosted our table of 11; our theme was Puerto Rico. I know I am biased, but Cristy's meal was THE BEST. It smelled like my grandmother's cooking but tasted even better, which is quite the feat. Jen's neighbors came, as did my mother, sister, and old college friend Barry.

My Mom bought me this plant for Easter but it got too top-heavy and started to lean :( We had to rig it to keep it from snapping! (Note: Eventually we had to cut it at the root)

The themed-potluck--Mexican Table

Camp Out Table!! My Favorite!
Tropical Table

Puerto Rican Table--that's us baby!

A second tropical table

The winner--the Spring Fling Table! (The Fieldings, the hosts, told us they cheated because half of this stuff is their wedding leftovers :)

Cristy's amazing dish, which I can't pronounce (Chicken Fricassee?) It smelled just like my Grandma's but tasted way better. I highly recommend it.

My buddy Barry and I sipping on some Virgin Coladas. Please notice my name tag, which Cristy cleverly designed.

Our group!Mostly Puerto Rican (minus Jen and Barry--Cristy counts as Honorary).

04.28: A new keyboard came in for me at work, which is especially important to me because the "N" character didn't work very well. As some of you may have noticed, I am not exactly the best speller (Spell Check saves my butt) and my progression kind of requires me to spell words correctly. So Yay for me! (I know...no one cares, but its cool for me OK!?!) Plus people expect Technical Writers to write/edit/spell correctly, but after reading other people junk--I am writing all week, I don't want to re-read my own e-mails (except professional correspondence). Is that bad?

Well Cristy and I have a really busy week coming up, so hopefully we will have another blog post soon! Thanks everyone for blogging! We read your stuff! You're interesting people :)

Cristy's quote of the blog: "Sometimes I lie to do missionary work."

Technical Editing Comment: Did you know that..."In standard English you just 'get hold' of something or somebody (there is no such word as 'ahold')."

Nathaniel's Lesson to Himself for the Blog: "Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left."

So...

For some reason, our latest post "March showers bring April flowers" posted below our second-to-last post, "Priesthood Ban."

Anyway, just so you know, we blogged recently so check it out!

Priesthood Ban

Hey everyone. Cristy and I are working on two different drafts for blog entries right now (so don't worry, this isn't it!) but I found this entry today on a blog I follow and I want to share it with you. It concerns the previous ban on the Priesthood for all worthy males in the LDS church.

Cristy and I have spent some time talking about this and I am glad to have found this wonderful explanation (or series of explanations) may from General Authorities and Apostles. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Enjoy.

http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/repudiating-racist-justifications-once.html

March showers bring April flowers?

So I don't know about you all, but I realized that Cristy and I haven't been doing too many things of interest recently. Not much to blog about? Why? Well, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, Cristy hurt her lower back (later diagnosed as a pinched Sciatic Nerve, or Sciatica) sometime back in December. For most people, this goes away within a few months (with treatment or without) but for some it lingers longer. Anyway, if you have ever had Sciatica, or worse, a ruptured or herniated disc, you know what ordinary tasks can be tedious and tiresome (i.e., you don't feel like moving around too much). In the case of Cristy, she likes to spend her leisure time walking or laying on the ground, asking for back rubs (understandable!). Add her new job, where she has been pulling 10 hour days, and you get not a lot to blog about.

So what have you bee doing Nathaniel? Surely something of note? Well not really. You see, a few weeks ago, the same day I was helping someone move, a group of us had some free time and decided to play an improvised game of tennis (long store actually). Well I ended up pinching MY sciatic nerve that day, though symptoms didn't show up until a few days later.

So, long story short, we have been one big hobbley mess. I am fairly close to full recovery but because Cristy just switched jobs she is between Insurances and can't go to the Physical Therapist again yet :(

On a happier note, our Easter was amazing! We really enjoyed our Easter program at Church and had a wonderful diner with my Mom, my Moms friend, Step mom, Dad, and sister. Not many fun pictures, unfortunately, but lots of good candy :) I went on an Easter egg hunt in the apartment and found lots of Cadberry eggs! Yum! Cristy woke up to chocolate covered strawberries, oranges, and bananas (I don't recommend the bananas...but the oranges are a must!)

Here are our relatively few pics!

A flowering tree that has just started to bud leaves. The Washington D.C. Vacationers missed these by ONE week!!!

A variation of the cherry blossom at a church we drove by one day

The whole batch of them in front of the church

Most people snack on snack food--chips, oatmeal cookies, spare fruit--but not Cristy. RD Cristy Moreira snacks on a salad when she gets a food craving.

HOWEVER, when RDs marry sweet-toothed husbands, they gets Easters like this! Chocolate-covered fruit garnished with jelly beans!

Cristy's beautiful Easter dinner linen design.

Google "Food Art" and you will find quite a few of Artists who are tired with their day jobs.

I thought this was funny.

Cristy--have you posted to our blog recently???

So we kind of forgot about that "blogging a little every day" thing from February. We have been busy...but at the same time it was the worst kind of busy because I can't remember what we did! (Re: I think some people refer to this as "wasting your time.")

Anyway...for what we did in:

-Mid-March, please reference the Poteet and Nikki Campbell blogs. Our pics can be painstakingly downloaded from the following website. Note: the link will expire in six days!
*http://senduit.com/788993
*http://senduit.com/e56e1d
*http://senduit.com/0adc0b
*http://senduit.com/d22605
-Late March, please reference our supervisors at work and the relentless missionaries in our Ward.
-Early April, this blog entry :)

Still playing catch-up from the trip, but thanks to some teamwork Cristy and I are much better on track now. We are't sick and our toilet hasn't flooded recently, so we should be good to go :)

PS On Monday I met with our Bishop, who also works in real estate. We aren't COMPLETELY sure yet, but we are fairly certain we will not be buying a house anytime soon. We did teh math and did some research online, and unfortunuatly it would not be a financially sound idea for us to purchase right now :( Soon, but not this year.

Look for more posts soon.

For REAL!

Kids kids kids

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooo family. This week we are trying a new blogging tactic: blog a tiny bit every few days and then the main blog post day won't be so dramatic for us (and potentially uneventful for you). So here we go.

02.16: Cristy went to the Doctor's today (Physical Therapist) and got one of the nerves in her back unlocked so she no longer has back pain. Apparently it's been that way since Christmas. Now we can start running again! When I reminded her whose idea it was for her to go to the doctor she said, "Well, technically, we were both right because we're bound together as one in the Temple." Menfolk--don't be fooled by this clever twist of logic. Thanks Satan--I mean Cristy.

I spent President's Day doing chores at home and running some errands (also, I ate Valentines Day candy). I also multi-tasked and watched quite a few Dirty Job episodes. Grossest of all Time: Animal Rendering. Most Dangerous: Alligator Ranching. Per Mythbusters, you cannot catch a bullet with your teeth. Who knew?

02.17: Have you ever walked into a store and been asked if you work there or not? Well it happens to Nathaniel ALL THE TIME. TWICE today alone, within minutes of each other. My record at Circuit City is three times (all time, not in a day). I mean...sheesh! They even have red aprons! I saw this one guy creeping up on me as if to ask me, but he just gave me the stare-down and decided not to ask. Good thing for him--I was considering going Hulk Hogan on him in the PC Components lane.

Does anyone watch The Biggest Loser? Cristy and I love it and watch every Tuesday night. Can't wait for next week!

02.18: I would like to think I am a Blue Dog (Fiscally Conservative) Democrat. I try anyway--sometimes it's hard to vote that way because I am also a very social liberal. So here I am at work, after just having hacked into my officemates computer because both he and my supervisor are MIA in a building where I am a visitor and where I have no personal computer access. I literally have nothing to do, so for about half an hour I ate potato chips and stared at a blue logon screen. Then I went to a meeting that I didn't know the title for and didn't have any agenda notes about. For an hour. Now it's Noon and I still don't know why I am in this building. The best part? Potentially, because I share a desk with an important printer, I might not have a desk a few days out of every few months. Think about that...no desk. "Hey Nathaniel, what are you up to today?" "Oh nothing, just eating some more potato chips."

Cristy is still waiting for her job offer (should come Thursday) and is hoping the Physical Therapist will give her permission to exercise. I'll let her give you the details on the offer, but since Darren asked, the difference between her salary and mine will be about $9,000. Yeah. How about that BYU education. Family Home Evening was great--our activity (due to lack of time it will be completed tomorrow) will be "Read Your Favorite Book." Yay for literature!

02.23: The weekend was busy! The pictures will have to tell the story! (Also, we saw my Mom, completed some Home and Visiting Teaching, and played basketball. Nathaniel almost got into a fight with a young stud who shoved an old man playing church ball Saturday. Not pictured.)

Ever wonder why I am always taking pictures of Cristy's food but not my own? Well wonder no more: please see above grilled cheese and tomato soup for clarification.

We went on a double date Friday to Color Me Mine; all of us chose to paint herbal tea mugs.

Brian's girlfriend Shannon...

Brian--wearing suspenders to get in the mood...to paint...

Nathaniel...

My final design...I have three spears, one football, some roman numerals, and some bamboo.

Shannon's skeleton (she is getting a Ph.D. in Physical Therapy)

Cristy's pear and grape cup. I think it won the pretty contest :)

Brian's work cup (to suck up to his boss)

Cristy practicing her Mommy skills Sunday night at a birthday party.

Nathaniel practicing his Dad skills with alternate child.

Herbie! Look at him go!

St. Valentines Day (minus Dinner)

Hello family. Thanks goodness January is out the door and February is almost over! The sun is shining and March is right around the corner!

So what’s new? Cristy and I finally have some closure to the job search situation. I started work a few weeks ago and I really like my job. I edit regulations (specifically airport design procedures) and basically anything my boss tells me to do, which I anything his boss tells him to do. I am under the FAA in the Office of Airports Engineering. It’s neat and exciting, although I know it doesn’t sound like it :)

Cristy just accepted a very generous offer from a large company that wants her to be the Director of Dining Services at a rather large facility. Let’s just say I am no longer the breadwinner :( Yeah for buying a house one day though :)

AND, soon, Scott will give this blog a makeover. Way to go Scott!

Well, job stuff has really been taking up most of our weeks, so that’s pretty much all we have for now. Now for the pictures!

Nathaniel trying to win Godfather of the Year Award (I'm talking about YOUR children, by the way, not this one. Hint hint. Wink Wink.)

Our first snow of the year! I got to stay home and "work" while Cristy trudged through the snow and saved lives. Go Cristy!


ANOTHER amazing Cristy meal. Teriyaki Chicken Lettuce Wraps with peppers, cucumbers, and carrots! Yum yum to my tum tum :)

Only one sesame seed bun? Got some extra peppers and scallions? How 'bout some pizza. Yeah, I have the greatest wife in the world.

Oh no! Cristy has some serious illness! Don't sip the Pepto babe--take it in one fell swoop!

Meatballs--that's how we roll.

And I do mean Meatball(s). Spaghetti. It's what's for dinner.

Valentines Day!Breakfast in Bed, Decorating tips with bags, some Sunflowers, Mints, Chocolates, and the world-renown "Bestest of the Wives Award."

"Bestest of the Wives Award"

One of our somewhat new plants. We have decided to have you join our green family and we are going to show you pictures as our baby grows. His name is Herbie (the "h" is silent).

When we started, we only had two leaves (the third was just this size when we replanted. Now the cycle begin anew! And you get to be a part of it! (Look, we don't have kids. Throw us a bone.)

No joke. No joke-this is a sculpture of the shoe that the Iraqi journalist threw at former President Bush. It is located at an Orphanage bit is currently being repossessed by the Iraqi government. Wow.