PURA VIDA: We're back y somos casados!

My Spanish is a little rusty, but we're back and we're married! Neil and I celebrated our 1 week anniversary yesterday and returned from Costa Rica today. We have had so much fun!! The wedding was awesome and beautiful and perfect. I have only seen a few pictures and I am so excited to get the ones from Neil's cousin, our wedding photographer. The tea party and open house were really fun and I am just so happy to have had so many people we love share in this event.

I am so grateful to all of our friends and family who worked so hard to make everything perfect. Oscar acceptance speech, I know, but I really can't express how wonderful, helpful and supportive everyone was.

If you have someone you love spending time with, I highly recommend marrying them!! Hanging out with Neil 24/7 has seriously been the most fun I've had in my life. Maybe this is why they call any timespan of euphoria before reality sets in the "honeymoon period," eh? But I think things will be cool down the road as well.

Poor Neil is sick right now, though. All the traveling got to him and he is feeling feverish and achy. He went to sleep early and I am unpacking boxes since I didn't finish moving in before we went to Costa Rica. I am not sure what to do to take care of him! He says he is fine, he just needs to sleep. I forced him to drink a lot of water earlier. My first test as a wife, I think. Hopefully he will be fine.

Costa Rica was really cool. It felt like a mix of places I've been: Mexico, Hawaii, the Bahamas. And something I can't quite put my finger on, too. It was cool speaking Spanish; like I said, I'm rusty. The food was good and the weather was beautiful. I saw a sloth! I will add pics to this post later, I hope. I think sloths are adorable. Neil thought it was disgusting. Apparently there were beetle/cockroach-like bugs crawling in and out of its fur. All I saw were flies landing on it, which wasn't that gross, but Neil saw the other bugs, so he was repulsed. I've always thought sloths were so cute so I'm glad I didn't see the bugs. I'm not really into monkeys, though, so it was OK we didn't see any. We did see a lot of cool, colorful birds and butterflies. There were tons of streams, rivers and waterfalls, too; way more than in Hawaii. The variety of flowers in Costa Rica is impressive, and there were so many beautiful, lush, jungle areas. We stayed in these really awesome beach bungalows that were surrounded by jungle and flowers. I love nature sounds, so it was cool to hear the bugs and frogs at night.

It was a really great trip and a great, relaxing start to our life together!

p.s. We saw HULK HOGAN in the Miami airport today!! I had a crush on him when I was 5, so I got a little starry-eyed. Neil almost had to take the Hulkster out to assert his superiority!

T-7 Days And Counting

Sooooo ONE WEEK UNTIL I GET MARRIED! For those of you who have been waiting for me to bust out with the gory details of wedding planning ad nauseam, I will do my best RIGHT NOW!

I am SO EXCITED to get married! Neil is awesome!!!! He is seriously the most amazing person I've ever met. Let me just say some things about him:

He is smart -- he is very intellectual and logical, and knows more about politics than anyone I know except my Uncle Dale (chair of the BYU-H Poli Sci dept.!)
He is creative -- he has SO MANY ideas for awesome design and architecture
He is kind
He is the most giving person I know
He is the most giving person most people who know him know
He is an Eagle Scout! Which is very impressive to me
He is Christlike in his actions
He is a great dancer -- he break dances like no white boy I know
He is super-fit, flexible and gymnastic -- I've seen him do flips, the splits 3 ways, walk on his hands, and various gymnastic moves incorporated into his break dancing. He's lifted weights every week for the past few years and he has an Excel spreadsheet to prove it, because
He is organized -- although his room resembles a disaster area, he cleans/organizes it nearly every day.
He always helps, supports and encourages me -- he gets excited about anything I'm interested in and he helps me to make my life easier: like getting me books and accessories to learn guitar, encouraging my desire to take ballet, getting me Shade shirts so I don't fret over what to wear, getting me bobby pins and hair ties because I can never find any, getting me Sterilite containers to organize my stuff in my house and car, encouraging and facilitating my travel to see friends with his flight benefits, getting me laundry bags because I had to use the laundromat, getting me a PDA phone because I wanted to be more organized, getting me foods I mentioned wanting to try, encouraging me to follow my career dreams, etc. etc. etc.!
He is a great yoga instructor!
He is a great masseuse
He is very good with money
He has great style
He is good at cutting, dyeing and doing hair
He is FUN!!!! He always plans fun things for the two of us to do, and he often orchestrates fun things for groups of us to do -- and he always tries to include and invite everyone
He is so sweet and romantic! From randomly giving me unique flowers, to box seats for two to a ballet at the Kennedy Center, to finishing a marathon with me, to last weekend helping me pack all my crap into a U-Haul and move to our new house, to the engagement-day trifecta: fly fishing lessons at dawn, a 4-hr. horseback ride through the mountains with lunch, and a hike to a peak overlooking the Shenandoah valley, where he proposed!
He is the most easygoing, happy-go-lucky person I've ever met
He is serious when he needs to be and is very practical
I could say so many more things -- this is what love does to people :)

The whole getting married thing sounds both crazy and pretty cool. The icing on the proverbial cake is that loads of people we love are coming out to celebrate! Neil's family is pouring in from Arizona, and his family here in VA will all be there. My grandparents from Utah are coming out, and -- treat of all treats -- my grandpa, a sealer, got permission from the First Presidency to perform our sealing in the Washington D.C. temple!!!! My aunt Linda and my cousin's wife, Stephanie, and her chubby little baby, Ambrose, are coming out from Hawaii!! My very good friends Cavan and Scott are coming from Iowa! One of my dearest friends, Linsi, is coming from Ohio! I am so excited to see all of these people!

We have been churning out batches and batches of announcements/invites. I have a very kind friend at the Arlington post office who has been hand-canceling ALL of our invites so they don't get torn up in the machines, and to give them a "personal touch." So, when you see that round date stamp over the postage stamp, you have Gary to thank.

I think the food is pretty much covered. My Dad has been filling up his freezer with gumbo he's made, which is quite a sacrifice, because between traveling the country and the world every week for business, I don't think my Dad has had spare time since the '70s. So I know it is a huge deal for him to MAKE the time to do this. Neil's family got together with us to make 300+ specially iced sugar cookies!! I hope you like green and orange :)

I have a dress I absolutely LOVE and am excited to wear! It is so pretty! As soon as the wedding is over, I will post pics of it. I am not letting Neil see it before the sealing. I am such a girl! Yes, that was a sexist comment. But really, there is something to be said about getting sucked into all of this wedding-day expectations/traditions propaganda, or, as Neil puts it, "it's not your fault -- you've been brainwashed for the past 27 years of your life to want the whole princess wedding-day thing." He's joking, but there is truth in jest.

I had my "bridal portraits" done by Neil's cousin, a professional photographer. I haven't seen them yet, but I'm sure they'll be good. She is also going to shoot the day-of, which should be exciting! Neil is quite averse to having his picture taken, but he is conceding to at least mostly candid ones. I have been advised that I do, or will, hold all the cards here and can make this man bend to my will, but I fail to either recognize my power or enforce it. But I will. Come on, a little manipulation never hurt anyone! ;)

Flowers are still up in the air. We need them for the open house. I am slightly concerned about these.

I am having a tea party!!! Neil's aunt planned it for me, and it should be fun. Especially because Neil and his "peeps" are going to go climb a rock wall. haha. That's not supposed to make any sense. But the tea party should be fun! It's an all-girl wedding celebration extravaganza. I hope I get to wear a giant bow on my head. In fact, I think I will arrive with a giant bow on my head. It just sounds ultra, over-the-top feminine and festive! The thing I love about all of this is, anything goes! I am the bride!! As Cartman said, "I do what I want!" Please keep that out of context.

We are going to Costa Rica!! We are going to a volcano, hot springs, jungle, zip wire, and the beach!! Mostly I care about the beach. A girl needs a tan!

Basically, the next week+ is going to be THE BOMB. I would even go as far to say that it will be a weeklong bombfest.

I hope Neil break dances at some point during these festivities. I have never seen him do a backflip. Many moons ago when I asked him to, he jokingly said he didn't want to lay all his cards on the table; he was saving the backflip for our honeymoon. I'll hold him to that.

UPDATE ON UFO SIGHTINGS!!!!

OK, sorry Stephanie and anyone else hoping I will bury this nonsense with a more interesting and normal post :)

Taralyn, thanks for the heads up on the gov't trying to hide the truth!! OK, this is really interesting to me, especially as a working journalist, that the article I linked previously is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on the Washington Post Web site -- in fact, a search only brings up lame Post blog entries about the event. HOWEVER, it does bring up a follow-up article that is QUITE intriguing!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012302890.html

The military changed their story about the UFO sightings! They initially said none of their aircraft was in the area of the sightings, and now they are saying, "Oh, yeah, OH, you mean THOSE F-16s! Silly us, we WERE flying them, that's probably what you saw, not UFOs!" Um, maybe it's just me, but I think the Air Force probably keeps SOME sort of record of where they are operating multi-million dollar aircraft. I don't think they somehow "just realized" they were flying them in the area. I think they are lying!!!!!

And yes, I'm crazy.

UFO sightings

OK, so I don't usually tell people about this, because it sounds weird, but I've seen a UFO. I'm not saying it was alien or anything; but it was flying, it was an object and I have no idea what it was. Before you think I'm making a lame joke about an unfamiliar species of bird, or some random thing someone threw at me, check this out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16
AR2008011604328.html

It seems UFOs like to frequent agricultural communities where there is a likelihood people will say, ""It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts." These people have described pretty much to a T exactly what my friend, Brenda, and I, and probably many other people, saw on our way home from an Iowa State University basketball game one night in Ames, Iowa.

But if you don't mind redundancy, here's our experience:

Brenda and I were driving across campus to our apartment after an ISU basketball game a few years ago (2002?). ISU is a Division I school (26,000 students), so the games are pretty big-time. So we were one car in a long line of cars leaving the stadium. We were about a half-mile from our apartment in this stop-and-go line of cars, when ahead of us and slightly to the right we noticed a line of lights shining down from the sky, all heading in one direction. The lights were funnel-shaped, and they looked like helicopter searchlights. We were like, "Whoa, what's going on?" so we turned the radio down and rolled the windows down, expecting to hear helicopters since they were so close to us. But we couldn't hear anything outside of the normal noise of cars. Which was really odd. So they didn't seem like helicopters after all. Then we noticed the light source was slowly moving forward but the lights were pointing down and slightly behind (you would expect helicopter searchlights to generally point forward). Also, although the light source was close to the ground and the lights were bright, the lights didn't descend all the way to the ground, so it didn't really look like searchlights after all. Then we realized that ALL of the searchlights were heading in the same direction TOGETHER, like a line of helicopters with lights pointing down and in the opposite direction from where they were moving. That's when we realized that it wasn't a row of helicopters, but lights along the edge of one HUGE saucer-shaped (I know) flying/hovering thing. Calculating that the light source was over our neighboring apt. complex and about a half-mile from us, that would make this object about a half-mile or more in diameter. We were really blown away, and I remember consciously looking at the clock to make sure it wasn't going to be an hour later the next time I looked at it, like we were abducted or something, because this was clearly a textbook UFO sighting. The lights, part of one big UFO, hovered for a few seconds and then, all together, they darted up and to the right and then up and to the left SO FAST it was like the whole thing was pitched to one of these steroid-pumping baseball players and hit out of the park; you could see it zoom off into the distance and it was GONE.

I looked at the clock, and no unaccounted time had elapsed. In fact, the whole thing only lasted about a minute. It was so crazy. Brenda and I were groaning that "Oh my gosh, we seriously just saw a UFO, how lame!" because although it might sound kind of cool, what do you do with that? I mean, what's the point of seeing a UFO? Over the next few days we told our parents and friends and looked in the news and talked to our Air Force ROTC friend, but there was nothing in the area that night that would have explained what we, and probably anyone else in the line of cars leaving the game, saw.

The article I linked above is funny because I think there must just be a standard coping pattern that people go through, trying to explain a UFO sighting like this. For me it comes down to this: I don't think it was Martians or weird aliens, but I do know it was something we can't identify, it was flying and it was one object. I think there are probably all kinds of things the military doesn't tell us about, and I am satisfied thinking it was some crazy concept thing they are working on and testing. For what, who knows, and I don't care. I don't have explanations, I just know what I saw.

Third attempt

This is my third attempt at a post tonight. This is why blogs are not an entirely accurate representation of an individual's thoughts. I think it best, for both of us, that I keep what's really on my mind relegated to my mind.

Nomadic Gnome often makes lists on her blog, and I love list-making so I'll try it here, too.

Mostly I'm anxious about
1) Being a lame wife who doesn't bake or delight in making crafts
2) Not getting everything done I need to in the next 5 weeks as far as wedding planning goes
3) Having a lame wedding open house
4) Making invitations and mailing them in the next week
5) Not being good with kids
6) Moving into a new ward, where I have to introduce myself as someone's wife; teach adults over 30 or children under 18; and act like a "real" adult in a "family ward"
7) Moving, which involves a) sorting through stuff and downsizing my posessions, b) cleaning my place top to bottom

I don't know why I can't find a cool white dress or skirt to wear to my open house. Yes, I don't even have invitations out, and I am mostly concerned about what I'm going to wear. Priorities.

Black Is The New Black

Everyone should be so lucky as to have their very own personal stylist. Mine came to me with quite the resume -- a signature, eclectic personal style; a wardrobe of clothes and shoes that fit me; a killer sense of aesthetics; extensive experience cutting, dyeing and funkily coiffing hair -- mostly his own. This was impressive, because hair defies me. I was afraid to dye my hair black the first time. (Yeah, I know.) My stylist can even cut a fade into his own hair, which I am told is quite difficult to master.

I've contracted with him for about 10 months, and I hadn't even utilized his hair styling skillz until now. Mostly I confer with him as my Secondary Fashion Director -- second to me. If ever I have any doubt, especially on finer points ("Which of these 5 pairs of black shoes goes best with this style of black skirt? Considering the details on the sweater I'm wearing? With this necklace or no necklace?") my stylist is there to give me totally dead-on, undisputable advice.

Based on these merits and a few others (including the fact that he's freaking hot), I negotiated a deal to make him the Assistant Fashion and Beauty Director for the House of Megan. This is an interim appointment, as he is currently closing a deal to become the resident Co-Director of Aesthetics -- to include fashion, beauty and environmental ambience -- for the forthcoming House of (edited), set to finalize mid-February 2008. Anyway, he rocks. His most recent project was re-dyeing my hair black. Check his work:

Wow, he looks so serious when he's working. And please excuse the cell phone camera. I'll have to post a photo of the finished product, but as you can imagine, it looks excellent. Would you expect less from a personal stylist?

Good News and Bad News

Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. Which do you want to hear first?

Well, let's get the bad news out of the way. My mom called me on Sunday to tell me my little Beeber passed away. That's my nickname for my cat, Long. I know it sounds silly to eulogize a pet, but if you've ever had a pet die, I hope you understand.
Long was so cute. He was just the sweetest cat. I found him as a kitten, abandoned, up in a tree. I had to climb up it to pluck him out. I called him my Baby, which evolved to BeeBee and then Beeber. Um, anyway ... I thought he would live forever. He seemed so young, and he was 12 this year, which is actually kind of old. But he has been sick recently with an upper respiratory infection, and my mom said he started to sneeze blood. Turns out he had developed a bad case of pneumonia. My parents had him put to sleep. I don't even know if that was Sunday or Saturday. I'll have to ask my mom. They buried him at their house next to our other cat, Toe, who died last June; 6/6/06, to be exact. Toe, who had extra toes like mittens, was 16.

Long's littermate, Short (Long had a long tail, Short has a short tail) is still kickin'. He is retarded. No, I'm serious. So it's amazing he is still alive. Very sad that they are all reaching their life expectancies.
I feel very sad especially because I knew Long had been kind of sick. I kept thinking that the next time I talked to my mom, she would say he was fine. I feel really badly because I have been so wrapped up in my life and all the changes and excitement going on that I feel like I forgot about or neglected Long. And other things in my life that matter. I feel like Long was like the Giving Tree. I hardly ever go home to my parents' house anymore. I feel so bad because last week my mom kept seeming like she was really wanting me to come visit. She kept saying things like I had mail to pick up, or I should see the progress on their kitchen remodeling, or she wanted me to stop by to visit because my dad was away on business. Now I realize she wanted me to come say goodbye to Long. I did go home last Wednesday, and was shocked at Long's deteriorating health. I wish I would have spent more time with him. I love you, Beeber.

*******

Now for the good news! I GOT A NEW JOB!!! I am SO excited! This is absolutely crazy, but I am actually working at my dream job! I don't even know how to say it, but I recieved a HUGE blessing. I am now working as a copy editor for Gannett News Service! This is amazing. Gannett owns USA Today and 85 other papers across the U.S. They are huge. I am working at the Gannett and USA Today headquarters in McLean; a supersweet, architecturally mindblowing building:

I work in the Gannett building on the left. USA Today is on the right.

I am SOOOOooo glad I took the chance and had faith that in quitting my old job something better would come along.

Gannett News Service is like the Associated Press of the Gannett company. All the papers they own look to them for redistribution of local stories that are of national interest. So I am copy editing stories sent to the headquarters from all over the nation. I also design the Markets & Money page and the Nation & World page. So, for example, if your local Gannett-owned paper has a Market Watch section, or a World News section, chances are I designed and edited that. C-R-A-Z-Y. It also sounds way more big-time than it is at this point, since I am just learning it and there are several editors who oversee what I do. But still! I feel so blessed. Right now it is a temporary position through January, but it has a good chance of being permanent after that. Let's hope!