Home Sweet Home

After a nice week and a half trip up to Maine, we're back home again. It's kinda nice to be home, even if that home is in Utah. We hadn't been able to make it back to Maine in what seems forever (it's really only been a few months over a year).

It was probably the longest Ashton's gone without working for a long time and he was a bit hesitant/nervous about it at first. After we left Utah though, he seemed to feel better about it. It probably helped that I drove the whole way there since we took my car instead of his stick-sift car. So, he got to read the whole way while I abused his poor ears with my singing. I even got him to admit that I was right about needing the vacation. He has a hard time admitting when I'm right sometimes and needs a little cooxing, even though I'm usually right.

I had a hard time leaving, thinking of probably every excuse possible to stay. Probably could have paid Jacob to slash the tires or something, but every vacation has its end I guess and Ashton had to go back to work. If plane tickets weren't so darn expensive, I might have considered staying longer while Ashton went back.

At any rate, we had some good adventures, definitely way too many to all be shared here although I wouldn't have to think of a new topic for a post for a long time. Our adventures included, but not limited to a trip around Maine with Grammy and Grampa, a trip to see Nana, kayaking on a lake, swimming with Jared and Siiri, and spending a couple of nights with Jacob and Heather (just beware of the fuzzy orange juice). It was a couple month's worth of fun packed into a little over a week.

One of my favorite parts though was getting to take pictures. I (I guess I should say we because Ashton took some of the pictures) definitely took too many pictures to all fit on here, but here are some of my favorites.

We spent our first night in Maine with Jacob and Heather. The next morning Ashton woke up to being conspired against. In the end, Liliana and I teamed up to get Ashton until Liliana was comfortable enough to get him by herself. She was not so shy the next time we stayed at their house.

This is one of the pictures that Ashton took, and such a good one of James. My favorite things about this picture is that it's just such a boy picture. There's nothing more boyish than playing in the mud.

James and Sam decided that they wanted to kill all the grasshoppers on the garage wall. Emma saw what they were doing and decided to save the poor grasshoppers. It then became a game of how many grasshoppers they could save and put in the jar.

Sam hanging upside down from the play set. Pretty impressive.

We had a fun time trying to get Eliza to smile for the camera. Finally, we got a few smiles out of her and Ashton snapped away.
Wilson Lake. We had a fun time kayaking and swimming on the lake. Nothing more peaceful than a couple of days on the lake.

I Can See!

Ok, so I've always been able to see, just not always very clearly. After being on my last pair of contacts for probably a little over a month, I finally went to the doctor's this morning. What finally did it was realizing last week that I was going to be flying across country for a week and a half with no backup contacts. I always have to fly with at least one extra pair of contacts, just to be safe.

So, I called around and got an appointment set up and went in this morning. It's been a couple of years since I've had my eyes checked and it was much needed. After playing the, "Is one better or is two better? Three or four? Five and six?..." game for a long time, it was decided that I needed a new prescription. No big surprise there. The amount of change was kinda startling, but hey as long as I'm seeing 20/20 again, I'm fine.

It feels like I'm seeing into the future or something. I mean gosh, the lines are sharp and I can read from distances without squinting. The sign of Smith's grocery store never looked so good. Even the stuff that's close looks good. Clear and sharp. It's freaking me out. I'm not sure I want to see everything so clearly, like the mess that is my apartment right now. Not to mention, that's going to change my ability to navigate and see road signs. I have no excuse for missing signs anymore besides the truthful, "Sorry dear. I just wasn't paying attention." Gone is my favorite, "Well, you have the better eyesight! Why didn't you see it?"

Although it's great to be able to see again, I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of responsibility.

Books, books, books

Most of my posts lately have been about books and this one isn't going to be much different. Reading has been taking up most of my time, which has been nice because it's been a while since I've been able to read something other than school books. I have a lot to catch up on.

Although I've gotten the other Twilight books, I haven't started them yet because I picked up a different book while I was waiting for them to come. Now, normally I have no problem reading more than one book at a time. I find that I can keep them straight and remember what was going on in both of them. This time, however, I felt bad for considering to put down this book to start the third book in the Twilight series. Maybe it's because I had already put it down once when I started the second book and it would just be insulting to the book to put it down again. For whatever reason, I'm determined to finish the book before starting another book.

The book is called Empire and it's by Orson Scott Card, who is a fantastic writer. The book is an interesting mix of fiction, what seems to be Scott Card's personal opinion, and social/political commentary. I'm not usually one for political books, but this one is good. The whole idea seems to be to ask the question, if the United States were to have a civil war, where would the lines be drawn?

It's an interesting idea as well as a scary one. The answer is obvious as well as true. Scott Card brings up the point that people in America think that we can't have a civil war here like other nations because we don't have the ethnic divisions that other nations have. It's true that we don't have that kind of division, but we shouldn't. Our country isn't tied together by ethnicity because the U.S. wasn't created by ethnic groups. The U.S. was created by the ideas of the people who came here. That's what ties our nation together, ideas. So, it stands to reason that what can divide our nation is the separation of ideas, basically your Democrat and Republican standards.

It seems like a crazy idea, but when you think about how divided the Democrats and Republicans are at this point, it starts to come together. By today's standards, to be a Democrat or Republican means that you accept all of the ideas that come with it. There are few politicians who could be considered moderate, accepting some standards of one group or the other, while mixing with other beliefs.

This makes voting hard. How do you vote for someone that you don't agree with because you aren't that extreme? Like anything, it probably takes voting for the person that you agree with on the important issues for you, while compromising on the other issues. It's hard to compromise though especially when there are many important issues.

Of course, Scott Card is not saying that civil war is inevitable. What he does though, is point out how it could happen and it would be a war unlike any other that we've fought. The main issue is getting people from either sides to agree. Most people, it seems, feel that they are so in the right, that everyone that disagrees is ignorant and plain wrong. They feel no need to try to see the other side's point of view, which is a big mistake if you're trying to get anything done. In my mind, the farther people gravitate to either side, believing that they are right and the other side, or anyone who doesn't agree with them, is wrong, the bigger the split between them becomes. All it would take is for one person to believe that they have been wronged beyond repair, and to take serious action. It's a sobering thought.

2 Down...2 More to Go...

Last week I spent a morning researching the Twilight series, trying to figure out where they were the cheapest. So, I bought them all on Amazon.com because of the price and because we had a gift card. (Thanks Paula!)

The hardest part has been waiting for them to arrive. Every day, I anxiously track the package only to discover they're still in Denver, CO, which is where they have been for the past 4 days. Why it's taken so long for them to get the package from the sellers to the facility is beyond me. It's not even comforting to think that they've just had a lot of packages to scan and it just took them that long to get to mine. It is the Post Office.

Thankfully, my friend Tara just bought the books and brought me up the second last Thursday when she came over. It was hard to go on our double date to see The Dark Knight, knowing that the book was sitting there just waiting for me to pick it up. I managed though and made up for it on Friday by reading for several hours. I did have to get some things done. Otherwise, I probably would have finished it.

I didn't really get a chance to pick it up again all weekend with relatives over and many things to do. We had a great weekend, but I should have hid the book. I felt like it was calling to me and it sure was hard to ignore. Every time I looked at it, I had to wonder what was going on within it's covers. It was a little maddening and I have to wonder about my sanity, if I have any left to wonder about.

It was all worth it. The loss of however much sanity I still possess, the wait, everything was worth it. I picked it up again last night (around 8:30 I think) and read until I finished it at about 11:30 pm. It was entertaining for Ashton mostly because when I get into something, I can't keep it to myself and I can't sit still. I was bouncing when I was happy with what was going on, gasping and yelling when it wasn't going how I wanted it to, I even shook the book when I wasn't happy with it. (Don't worry Tara, it's still in one piece.) I eventually had to move to the floor because I was changing positions every couple of minutes. Someday, I may master the technique of sitting still. If there's anything worst than a little kid who can't sit still, it'd be me.

So, I'm back to waiting. I'm hoping that our books will get here in a few days. We'll see how that goes. Until then, I really have to find something else to do.