Winnie the Pooh

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, where Christopher Robin plays, you'll find the enchanted neighborhood of Christopher's childhood days.

I ask myself, "Are there greater words from my childhood?"

Cory and I were grocery shopping and happened to see The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in a small movie rack.  At first I thought it was the new one from a couple of years ago.  No, it was the original.  I didn't realize they were even selling them.  It was an easy purchase for us, and we watched it twice in two days.

My mom would sing the theme song as my lullaby when I was little, and maybe once when I was 18.  Whatever.  I am married now, I can admit it.  Needless to say, it was a classic from my childhood, and Cory's, too.

Date Night at Ike's

Every once in a while you just feel like it is time for a milkshake.  Cory and I headed to Ike's for some Blue Bell ice cream shakes for a quick and fun date.  They boast being the only place in Utah that sells Blue Bell ice cream.

Cory's Culture Shock

Jake and Anna forced Cory and me to go get tacos with them.  They get really clingy sometimes.  Anyway, we went, and it was awesome.  They introduced us to this little place run by multiple families in South Provo.  Walking in to their makeshift restaurant immediately brought memories of Argentina flooding back to me.  Everyone spoke Spanish, and was making their food on little propane stoves.  The sounds and smells were all too familiar to me.  The nostalgia was sweeping over me in waves, and I felt the intense need for Cory to understand that this atmosphere was "home" to me for two years.  It was nice to walk in and realize how much I missed it, and still love it.  There is something happy and pleasant tangible in the air despite a lack of the material.

The tacos were delicious, and it was fun to see Cory's reaction to the atmosphere.  She totally had culture shock.  She kept mentioning how crazy she thought the place was; not crazy in a bad way, just so different from anything she had experienced before.  This culminated with me looking over and realizing she was taking a video of the place.  

Cory in Ohio

While I was getting everything in order for my applications to graduate school, Cory was busy at work.  Noah's is growing and expanding their business at a rapid rate!  They have plans to build new venues all over the country.  Cory traveled to Ohio to work a bridal show with her good friends Tiffany and Megan in preparation for a new building opening near Columbus in September.  From what I heard, they had a lot of success, and the whole show was buzzing about this new venue coming into the market.  I am grateful for such a hard-working woman by my side!

GRE

With the start of the new year, I have started to get serious about applying for graduate school.  One of the items on my to-do list was to take the GRE, a standardized entrance exam for most schools. 

I knew I needed to place above the 50th percentile to be considered for admission by most schools, which I was hoping wouldn't be a problem.  Since the GRE is standardized I kept telling myself something along the lines of, "You can't really study for a test like this." I realize that isn't the best attitude to have, but I also wasn't going to spend months getting ready.  My friend, Joseph, took it last year and gave me his test prep book.  I looked through a few sections and felt good to go.

So the day of the test I was getting a little nervous, but nothing too serious.  When I arrived at the testing center I had to fill out some forms, and then I was caught off guard at the bottom of the page.  They provided a space for me to copy a paragraph saying I was who I said I was and I wouldn't cheat.  The catch: the paragraph had to be written in cursive.  Cursive?  I haven't written in cursive since the 4th grade.  Literally.  My cursive literally reflects the intelligence level of a 4th grader.  It took me about 25 minutes to finish the  paragraph.  While my hand was cramping up, four other test takers came and finished their forms before I completed my paragraph.  Without a doubt it was the hardest part of the test, and it wasn't really even part of the test. 

Luckily the rest was easier.  After three hours I got my scores.  80th percentile for verbal reasoning and 70th percentile for quantitative reasoning.  Not the highest scores, but well above what I needed.  Now starts the process of filling out applications!

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday 2014! 

 Cory and I brought in the New Year at the Hyatt House.  The Hyatt House is Noah's preferred hotel on their vendor's list, and Cory, as building manager, received a free night stay, so we cashed it in.  It's one of the perks of being an incredibly successful and independent woman. 

We started the night with dinner at Fuji's.  I have always thought I would make a good hibachi chef.

So I think we all can agree that a toast at midnight is kind of necessary in any new year celebration, but for some reason we did not plan ahead for this.  After dinner we stopped by Target to pick up some sparkling cider, but they were sold out.  Can you believe that?  At 8:00 on New Year's Eve Target was sold out of speaking cider.  What? Was there some crazy demand for it?  Did everyone else have the same idea as us and buy theirs earlier in the week? Oh...they did?  Oh...

Anyway, we settled for sparkling grape.  It served its purpose.  Happy New Year!