8 Amazing things about my husband

1. His smile - it was the first thing that attracted me to him.

2. He owns more books than I do, and I'm a librarian!

3. He puts up with nursery kids using him as a horsie on a weekly basis.

4. He can make instant friends with strangers, and in several languages to boot.

5. He still enjoys jumping on the bed and playing air guitar.

6. He can do this weird thing where he pops out his shoulders. I can't describe it, but it feels funky when he does it while holding my hand.

7. He inspires me to be a better person.

8. He puts up with me - enough said!

Friday night with Wyatt

Tonight we took Wyatt to a movie and brought him home with us for pizza. Afterwards Don and Wyatt had a wrestling fest and some quality computer game time. Here they're playing a Pirates of the Caribbean game. I think Wyatt wore his Uncle Gonny out!

Your Moment of Zen

Sorry to steal that from Jon Stewart, but here is some random weirdness from our Spain trip. We were in Toledo on the night before Three Kings Day/Epiphany and got caught in a three kings parade. It took a really long time for the three kings to arrive, but we stayed the whole time. We survived chain smokers, loud music, people throwing penny candy (and other people acting like maniacs because of the free candy), fire trucks with sirens, and even camels. Note the ubiquitous product placement too. And no, we didn't stick around to see if we could tell the three kings what we wanted for the holiday. I guess we were supposed to put our shoes out for them to leave us some toys?

More wedding pictures

These were taken by my dad and my friends the Hunsakers.

We tried haggis, but not in Scotland.

January 25 was the 250th birthday of poet Robert Burns. At BYU Special Collections, I have responsibility for the Robert Burns Collection and have an exhibit up in the library. I was also invited to take a few books from the collection over to the Robert Burns Supper that the Utah Scottish Association held in the Wilkinson Center. Between the Robert Burns exhibit I've been working on for the past 6 months and the paper I was working on, I sometimes feel like I have had an extra man in my life.

Neither Don nor I have ever been to one of these dinners, and it quite interesting. There are lots of traditions associated with Burns Suppers, from piping in the haggis to traditional toasts to poetry readings and singing "Auld Lang Syne." And tons of food using products traditionally grown in Scotland, from salmon to oats.

Haggis tastes really strange. I can't describe it, but it wasn't so good to me. After we tried the haggis, Don leaned over to me and said, "Remind me to tell you later what I think this tastes like." Uh-oh, I thought, this can't be good. I know some of the meats he's tried -- I even tried alligator with him! Sure enough, after we left, he confirmed my suspicions: haggis reminded him of dog meat. I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to go to the Burns Supper next year!

The dinner (and me) are on BYU Weekly this week!

Our Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we spent 18 days in Spain, Morocco, and Scotland. In Spain, we went to Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Santiago de Compostela, and spent a little bit of time in Madrid and Tarifa. We stayed in Fes and Rabat in Morocco, and in Scotland, we visited Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This picture is from the bullfighting ring in Sevilla. They only have bullfights in the summer and at Easter time. The box at the upper right is where the royal family gets to sit, though we were told the queen is against bullfighting.

The weather was very uncooperative. We only had a few days of sun. We experienced rain, fog, snow (in southern Spain!), sleet, and even a hailstorm.

We saw a lot of museums, palaces, and old churches on our trip. We literally walked around the old city of Toledo and tried hiking Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, but didn't get very far, since my shoes kept trying to slip off. We also did some pretty random things, like going to a bowling alley in Madrid. Don won -- surprise, surprise. He creams me at bowling on the Wii too (the only thing I can do really well is hula hoop).


In Scotland, I spent most of my time in conference sessions, while Don got to go explore on his own. He walked up a lighthouse in Glasgow and toured underground in Edinburgh. He also got to experience the British health care system because of some dental problems. We definitely want to go back to Scotland and see more of the countryside. We also didn't get to spend enough time in Morocco. We hope we will get the chance to travel again soon!

We committed matrimony!

Yep, we're officially married, folks!

It was truly the best day of our lives. We are so happy to have been married in the temple. We are grateful to all the people who have supported us and look forward to seeing many friends and family this Saturday to help us celebrate.

We survived the Houston weather, and Houston traffic. It actually snowed a couple of days before the wedding! It was windy and overcast the day of our wedding, so our wedding pictures will probably look like we and all of our guests had bad hair days.