Part One- Riga and Vilnius

We have been scheming about this trip for over a year and it finally happened! I wanted remember every detail of the trip so I kept a journal that I will be kind of transferring over to the blog so I won't ever loose it! Here is a brief overview;
We visited Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Venice, Rome, Sicily, and Germany (in that order) and we traveled by just about every means possible! We had a Eurorail pass that we used to get most places and we booked all of the placed we stayed via AirBnb

After almost 25 strait hours of travel, we landed in Riga, Latvia. Lina, a sister that Lewis taught on his mission in Lithuania, let us stay with her and her family. The next morning we got up and ate museli and yogurt and Lina showed us around Riga Old Town. Her two year old son cracked us up! His mom speaks Lithuanian, English, and Latvian, His dad speaks Latvian, English and Russian, and we heard Sebastian speak Lithuanian, Latvian, English, and Russian! We were laughing at how many languages he was speaking when he surprised us by yelling Hola! Hola! Hola! Spanish?! That kid is going to be a genius.

Riga was unbelievably beautiful. The winding cobblestone streets and old colorful buildings were like something from a movie. I wish we had more time there, because after a few short hours we had to hop on a bus to Vilnius, Lithuania. It was incredible to experience getting on a bus in one country, driving for three hours and getting off in an entirely new country where everyone looked different and spoke a different language! The Lithuanian countryside was beautiful, with green and yellow rolling hills and aspen and pine forests. On our trip I talked to a couple locals who told me that Lithuanians are "close to the earth." They have a culture of gardening, farming, mushroom hunting, and are just generally very close to nature. I noticed in most of the homes we visited they had incorporated plants into their decor and almost all of them had fresh cut flowers on the table. On the bus to Vilnius we saw a man and a wife tilling their farm with a horse drawn plow. I never thought I would see that in my life and it made me happy :)

Part of the reason we timed our trip the way we did was so that we could attend the LDS churches 20 year celebration of the country being open for missionary work. After getting into Vilnius, finding the apartment we were staying in, and relearning the bus system, we got to the church a little late but just in time for Lewis to bear his testimony along with others who have served their missions in Lithuania. Though I didn't understand most of what was said, the Spirit was almost overpowering and the warmth and love from the members there is something that I won't ever forget.
It was really fun to be in a country where American's weren't considered "stupid tourists." Everyone we met was super excited to meet us and LOVED that Lewis was an American who could speak Lithuanian! On the bus ride back from the church activity a bunch of girls on a field trip from Belarus got so excited when they found out we were American they took a picture of us and asked us to speak English for them :)
That night we ate Lithuanian pizza and kepta duona, which is black bread that has been fried and you dip it in cheese. It was very different, but good.
Stay tuned for more about our trip :)

Lost...

At long last... I finished our Florida movie!

In case you hadn't heard about our little adventure last Thanksgiving, I'll get you up to speed.
We had a couple Buddy passes (You can fly standby with one of these magical things) and they were about to expire. Lewis suggested that we check out Key West (because, you know, why not?) so we planned on spending a couple laid back days in the Florida Keys around Thanksgiving weekend. A couple days later Lewis came to me and said he had found a Cuban guy who would let us rent his huge  Sea Cat while we were there. We found this island called Dry Tortugas that had this awesome fort and great snorkeling and lots of sea turtles! Then we saw that they would let people camp there and, well, that sounded awesome so we decided to do it.
We jumped on a plane late on the 27th of November and got into Miami in the early hours of the 28th. We rented a car and drove about four hours to Long Key where we had rented a room on AirBNB. We got a few hours of sleep and then drove over to the place where we were going to rent the boat. We stopped and grabbed some sandwiches and chatted with a few Conchs (born and raised locals). They were both fishers and when we told them what we were planning on doing one of them said, "Wow. That's bad A. The water's supposed to be kinda rough.. But you could probably make it." That should have been our first clue.
We got to the guy's house who owned the boat and had his son do the translating because he didn't speak english. We drove the boat to a place where we could get gas and as we were pulling away the person working there pled with us, "Please don't go out. You're not going to like it. The water is *crappy* today, seriously!" That was our second clue, but we were pretty confident. (Or maybe naive?)
The first little bit was ok. It was pretty chilly, the wind was biting, and the waves were pretty choppy. The Keys are just one long chain of islands that continue pretty much unbroken for quite a ways. We stuck pretty close to shore which shielded us from the really huge waves and blocked a lot of the wind. But after Key West there is a channel about ten miles wide that wouldn't shelter us from the wind or the waves. Guys, that was crazy. The waves were between 6- 8 feet tall! I was bouncing around the boat while Lewis was holding on for dear life. We made it past the channel, bruised and exhausted, just in time to hear the coast guard come on and order a small craft advisory. We had only about an hour of sunlight left and it was another two hours at least to Dry Tortugas. We found a little island in the Wildlife Preserve that we could spend the night on and go the rest of the way to Dry Tortugas in the morning. What we didn't know was that we pulled in right at high tide, so when we woke up the next morning at low tide our boat was sitting
on
the
beach.
We tried super hard to push/dig it out, but to no avail. And the sand there isn't really sand. It's itty bitty pieces of broken coral, so it had the same effect as shards of glass when we tried to dig through it with our bare hands. Lewis' poor arms looked like he had stuck them down a garbage disposal :( We were kinda bummed that we wouldn't be able to make it to Dry Tortugas, but then we realized... That we were LITERALLY Stranded On A Desert Island and that the only responsible thing to do now was to make a survivor-type home video.
Enjoy!

A Blank Slate

It is 01/01/2013!
Most years I get so excited for Christmas that I almost forget about New Years. But New Years has always held a special place in my heart. One of my favorite things in the world is a brand new notebook. The possibilites are endless what you can do with a hundred sheets of pristine, white paper! It's a blank slate, a new start, and a place where all of your ideas can just sort of flow out onto the paper and nothing is impossible. I get that same feeling around New Years time. A whole year is just rolled out in front of you and you have all the power in the world to decide what it's going to be like and what you are going to do. I love making resolutions and always sit down (with a brand new notebook) and make a list of all of the things I want to accomplish, and how I plan on doing it. It feels magical to have so much control over my goals and I hope I am not the only one who feels this way about the new year!

You might have noticed that we have not been doing great on keeping up this blog. Things just got a little too crazy with school and work for us to keep all of you in computer-land updated. That does not mean that we have stopped having adventures, it just means we havent been telling you about them... Anyways, we have some pretty good stories coming up but they are going to be out of order.. Just FYI. But here is a sneak peek.

We spent Christmas and New Years eve in Utah again this year. It's been so great hanging out with family and friends! Last night to welcome in the new year we lit lanterns provided by LaDena and sent them flying into the night sky. After that Mark toasted to "living extraordinarily." It was a very inspirational thought that I will always remember!

Happy New Year! Make some memories!

Catch Up

We feel bad for neglecting our little blog-journal. Our vacation in August totally threw off our schedule! Anyways, I know from experience with previous journals that playing catch up is hard. I just recently went back in one of my journals and read and example of this very thing! 

"Dear Journal,

Wow. It's been a while. Like, three years and two months. Well, let me try to catch up a little. 

In April my family and I drove down to Blanding.. 

Hold on I have to go eat dinner. Back in a minute!"

And then another two years went by before I picked it up again. 

Suffice it to say, I will keep this brief, and painless. 

In August we had our first Anniversary. It was amazingly special! Lewis took me to Herman Park where he gifted me a lock with our names inscribed into it with the dates, "August 6- Eternity." We followed a tradition that is pretty popular in Europe and is starting to get traction in the US. We locked the lock onto the bridge and then threw the keys into the water. Then Lewis took me to a Brazilian steak house where you can eat as much meat as you want and it is all to die for! He knows me way too well :) 

A week later we headed out to Utah to spend time with friends and family and to see Aleah get married!!! The week was a wonderful blur of good food, good weather, and good company! The wedding (and especially the bride!) were beautiful and we are so happy for Aleah and our new brother-in-law Shay! 

That night we spent the night in Salt Lake with Jade so we could catch a super early flight to San Francisco! We spent a day in the bay, then drove to Yosemite and spent two days in the park. Then we drove over and spent two days with our good friends Patrick and Danielle in Monterey! We decided that day that Monterey is like, our favorite place on earth. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip. 

It was a really great adventure! 

Since then we have been keeping busy! I started a new semester and Lewis has been working as hard as ever. Lewis had his birthday a few weeks ago and we celebrated by cooking up some steaks on the portable grill that I got him! The weather it noticeably cooler and we hope it stays that way so we can spend a lot more time outside! 

The most Valuable .5%

With my one year anniversary coming up next week its fun to think back on all of the events that have gotten me to where I am today. Its been a great year, with out a doubt the best year of my life. Some say marriage is tough and hard... maybe they were talking about year two? This week Dane and I had an opportunity to meet with one of the biggest Venture Capital firms in Houston that deals in our space of IT. Of all of the business meetings that we've had this one was our best. Our confidence and security of our idea were key to how great the meeting went. We have a really great direction with our company that is so exciting even the Venture Capitalist said "I believe you will have a venture backable company" and "I really like what you two are up to, and think you are headed in some interesting directions." This was great validation of what we already knew was a great idea. We still have mountains of work to get done before we can really be fundable, but we are closer than ever to the promised land and out of the wiggles of false hope.

A year and a half ago I found myself working all day everyday on my company, thousands of miles away from the girl I loved and with almost no money to my name. This was a very hard situation to be in. Around this time my company got its first paying gig doing some contract work for a local company. This was not a lot of money for our poor little bootstrapped company, but it was a start. So here I was stuck. If went and tried to make some money outside of my company, I would lose most of my company because of strict rules in our operating agreement. If I kept with the company I wouldn't make any money so I couldn't do what I wanted to do so bad, which was propose to Jessi. So I did the only thing I could do, I sold a part of a percent of my company to my partner and his wife to be able to take a little cash out from our earnings on the contract work we had just completed. With that money I was able to buy a ring and a plane ticket back to Utah to propose to the girl of my dreams. Now in the likely event that my company does get funded and Venture backed many would say that was a really dumb move on my part. Even at a really bad evaluation on a round A of financing that part of a percent would be worth 10's of thousands of dollars. And there are some who would hold on to that, because that's what matters most to them. 

Two nights ago Jessi and I went on a date to the Temple...

 It is so clear when you are there what really matters most. There is no way that any event in this life would ever make me regret that decision. Looking back through the eternities are we going to be upset about the loss of a little wealth, or are we going to rejoice in plan of salvation and the sealing power in the Temple that binds us together for all eternity? If on some future exit event someone were to say to say to me, "that .5% sure was worth a lot", I would argue it was priceless. It enabled me to do that which is most important in this life... marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority. I look forward to an eternity of happiness with the most beautiful girl in the world. 

Condolences and Car Trouble... and Hicks

Tuesday- Car Trouble

Well, actually we had trouble Monday also. But the real trouble started Tuesday. Monday after going to the gym our car wouldn't start. We figured by some quirk the battery had died and asked our friend Dane to come jump us. After he was half way there Lewis said, "I wish this car would just start!" and he turned the key. And the car turned on. It was a miracle. We started it four more times that night and it started just fine. Tuesday morning I left our apartment about 10 minutes after Lewis had gone to work. Again, the car wouldn't start. The roadside assistance guy that came to jump the car couldn't get it started and told me there was nothing wrong with my battery. I didn't get to go to work that day. But I got a lot done at the apartment, and even had time to experiment a little with glass cutting! All I did was get a string, dip it in wax, tie it around the middle of a glass coke jar, and light it on fire. If I had thought it would work, I probably wouldn't have done all of this in our bathtub. After it burned a good little bit, I turned on the water and the top broke off! I admired my work, and then cleaned the bathtub Really well. 

When Lewis got home he poked around the car for a while and then decided to jump it just for kicks. Guess what? It started. We drove to Wal-Mart and got a new battery thinking that would solve our problem. I got to work just fine the next day, but after work I went to the gas station and it would not start again. We gave in and finally paid a guy to replace our starter. It's so painful to get the quote for how much it would cost just to get our car working again and imagine all of the things we could do with that money instead. It took four hours for him to fix the car, and we spent the majority of that time at Hobby Lobby. Words can't do justice to the wonders of that store, so here are a few pictures. 

Friday we woke up to the news about the shooting that happened at the midnight showing of The rise of the Dark Knight in Aurora, Colorado. It was really sad to follow the story all day as more and more information was released. I think in the end 12 people were killed and over 70 total injured. It's interesting to reflect on the human mind and wonder what would cause a person to do something like that. And also to watch how society reacts to a tragedy like this. Some people are saying we need stricter gun laws, other people are saying we need more citizens bearing arms. I think we like to try to point fingers at one cause or another, just so we feel like we have some sort of control over the situation. My thoughts are that if everyone just strived to be the best parent, sibling, friend, neighbor, coworker, and stranger they could be, we would see a big change in this world. Maybe some things like this just couldn't be predicted or prevented, but I know I'll try harder from now on not to take the people I love in this life for granted.

Later on Friday Lewis took me to see the giraffe that had just been born at the zoo. It's pretty elusive for a newborn, because we didn't see it that day Or when we went back on Sunday. 

We spent the better part of Saturday in Galveston celebrating Chris's birthday. We had a BBQ with carne asada, guacamole, and grilled pineapple. Later that night we went to an Imax theatre in Galveston to watch the Batman movie. I did feel a little guilty going after everything that happened, but we had been planning this for a few weeks. I will say honestly that the shooting probably effected how I watched the movie and as a result, I didn't like it. 

Sunday evening we decided to go to the zoo again. It cooled off a little and there was a breeze blowing so it was bearable to be outside. The first thing we always do when we go to the zoo is check on the red panda to see if it is mobile. Usually it's snoozing in a tree and is kind of boring to look at. Today it decided to wake up and take a little walk around its habitat. We heard the Funniest conversation that day. This family came up behind us. The dad was about my height, wore cutoff jeans and had a dirty, sleeveless t-shirt that he had pulled up around his chest (either because he was hot, or to show off his beer belly) and a cowboy hat. The son was about 16 or 17 with bright red hair and was dressed, well, like a redneck. I didn't see the mom, because I was afraid if I tuned around to stare at them I would start laughing. Here's how it went, and imagine hearing this in the most southern hick accent ever...

Son- This ain't a panda! This AINT a panda! It looks like a... It aint a Panda! 

Mom- It IS a panda it says so right on this sign! (raps repeatedly on the sign) Says its a red panda. 

Son- Well I wanna see a black and white panda. Not a red panda. Where's the black and white panda?

Mom- Black and white pandas are in australia. You think your going to go all the way to Australia to see a black and white panda?

Son- Yeah I will! 

Mom- You know how much that's going to cost?

Dad chimes in- They say panda's are native to North America, but I have Never known a red panda to be native to North America. They're just not. 

(I don't know who is saying that panda's are native to North America... but I'm pretty sure that they are found only in remote areas in China. That kid is going to be so disappointed when he gets to Australia and can't find any pandas :)

After the zoo we decided to take a walk around the lake in Herman Park. At one point we stopped while I tried to get a picture of all the turtles swimming around in the lake and Lewis grabs me and says, That kid is killing a bird! 

This kid who looked like he was about 7 had caught a pigeon, and had a wing in both hands and was just shaking the poor bird. I wasn't sure if I should yell at him, or go smack him. I looked around for his mother and saw her sitting on a bench a few feet away, with this little smile on her face like, Oh! my child is so adorable. The kid threw the bird at another kid and the bird had enough sense to flutter away. Did the mom not think he could hurt the bird? and even if she was Cruella DeVille and just didn't care, doesn't she know how dirty birds are?! Especially pigeons?! We had barely recovered from that when we saw the craziest thing ever. Two huge muskrats were out of the water hanging out around this group of people, and there were four more smaller ones in the water close by. In the water they look kinda cute, but on land they looked nasty. One of them was about three feet long, with huge yellow front teeth, like a mole or something. While we were watching we saw one mother put a tiny piece of bread in the hand of her three year old and held it out to the muskrat. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?! Are you naive? or just dumb? Later as we were talking to our neighbors about our walk they said, "Oh on one side of the lake there is is family of otters that will get out of the water and let you feed them! It's so cool!" I showed them a picture I took and asked if that was the "otter" they fed. Sure nuf, it was. "That's actually a muskrat." I said. They weren't convinced. "Well, somebody there told us it was an otter. Maybe otter and muskrat are two names for the same thing."

Otter... So not the same as a muskrat.

So... I'm not sure if they only teach you what muskrats are if you grow up in the Rockies, or if these people just have never flipped over to animal planet in their lifetime. 

 As we finished our lap of the lake we sat on the steps by the water and watched a couple of young men sparring with padded pvc pipe swords and spears. I had a flashback to when my brothers and their friends made padded weapons and beat the crap out of each other in our front yard. It's good to know you can find the same small town hobby in downtown Houston. :)

Dear apple, we're through

Is the world losing its love affair with apple? I pride myself in being slightly ahead on tech trends, and if that stays true then I think this is the beginning of the end of the iphone's reign as best smart phone. You can only stay in an abuse relationship for so long. At some point you wake up and realize that the abusive cycles and tactics just keep going and going and you have to man up and break it off. You see, I had the first iPhone, and I remember everyone saying "why doesn't it have 3g or a better camera or a long list of other features that were standard on other smart phones at that time?" I rationalized these thoughts away in the cool design and touch screen. I thought, well, you can't have it all. And that has become Apple's motto, "you can't have it all". So when the next iPhone came out, I had little choice but to upgrade, every other smart phone already had 3g and I was tired of the slow internet speed on my phone. But Apple stayed true to its motto and left out a long list of features to make sure that in a year you were so far behind other phones that you would once again be forced to upgrade. So a year later I forked out for the 3gs. Now this was a sweet phone, it took nice video and had faster internet and was just faster all around. But they left out the front facing camera and the one camera it did have was still at 3 megapixels, far behind that of other phones. And all of the while I'm paying much more for service than I would have to pay for any other phone because Apple just had their way with AT&T. I was pretty happy with the 3gs, and I used it for 2 years, then upgraded to the 4s on sprint. And anyone that has ever used the iPhone 4s on sprint knows how crappy it is. Apple once again tricked me... every other phone on the market had 4g internet when the 4s came out, but Apple wanted to make sure that once again, in a year my phone would be far behind. This time I was done. I sold my iPhone and got a 4g LTE EVO and now I am out of the cycle of abuse and loving life again. I have crazy fast internet (I've reached 15Mbps at home) and without having to wait on pins and needles for the next hack like I had to with iphone I can just use my phone the way I want to, not the way apple wants me to. This last weekend when Jessi saw how awesome my phone was with its big screen and super fast internet she caved too. Now the 4s was Jessi's first smart phone. She loved it so much. This was a really hard decision for her, but after one day with her Samsung Galaxy S3 she had a very telling dream. In her dream she was writing a "dear john" letter to Apple, and it went like this:

Dear Apple,

We're through. I'm fed up with your over controlling attitude and slow internet. I loved all of my apps, but I found them all again in the android market. I can't take another day wondering what I did wrong to be stuck here waiting for my maps to load to get directions while all of those around me speed on by with their faster phones. I'm tired of feeling like this was my fault, like it was something that I did. Now I know it was you. I'm better off with someone else.