2.7 Years

Today in Bashas I remembered my engagement night with Pamela as we were shopping.  I recalled that we had talked about how it felt like we were together longer than two weeks.  Most couples only get to go out with each other once a week if they were lucky, so we figured we had put 14 weeks worth of relationship time into the two weeks.
This made me curious as to how long we've really been together going by that model.  Most non-married couples who don't live together can only see each other once a week if they're lucky.  Pam and I see each other every day.  Convert the days into weeks, then back into days, and into years.
Mathematically speaking we have been together for 2.7 years now.  So, people giving Pam a hard time about not knowing me and being a child for getting involved too quickly and what not please shut it.  Just because you are childish, ignorant, and stupid doesn't mean that everyone else is.

Angel Hates Puppy Chow

So today I tried some food that Pam Fowles suggested.  I poured it into the bowl and Angel gobbled it right up.  I put some Puppy Chow in there and she stopped eating and gave me a look like, "Where's the good stuff?"  It's nice to know what's going on with that dog, comes a little late since I now have lots of Puppy Chow and one dog who shouldn't eat it and another one who won't eat it.  Pam also said that Angel would probably eat the Puppy Chow if it was mixed in with canned dog food.
Yes, my puppy which wouldn't eat the canned stuff and preferred to choke trying to eat the big dog food now realizes that canned dog food is tasty.  Weird little dog.  Bo didn't eat much today either, when he didn't have to compete for food with Buddy he stopped eating as much, maybe that's what's happening with him?

Attempted Hunger Strike?

Lately I've given the dogs more treats and things because Angel is getting a little too skinny.  I've been careful not to disrupt Bo's diet too much by giving Angel more.  I expected Angel to gain some weight and Bo to stay about the same but I did not expect this to lead to greater demands about breakfast.
Angel wants Bo's food and Bo usually wants Angel's food.  I feed them separately to prevent Angel, whose too skinny now as it is from getting diet food, and Bo thinks Angel's is tastier than his own.  So Bo gets fed inside the house and Angel is fed outside the house.
Today Bo decided that if he couldn't have Puppy Chow he would get garbage instead.
My door to my laundry room is in such bad shape that it had to be taken off the hinges just so that I could use the room without walking through the backyard and going around the house constantly.  Bo can smell the garbage in the house and for some reason thinks it smells tasty.  So, as I kept trying to get ready for work he kept figuring out ways to sneak into the garbage.  I put it all out of his reach and blocked the doorway with the door.
I heard the door fall and I yelled.  I rushed to the scene of the crime and found Bo cowering in a corner.  I pointed to his food dish and commanded, "Eat That!"  He never left his cowering position.  That dog knew he was in trouble.
Angel meanwhile was looking up into the house hopefully and completely and totally ignoring her food.  She had complete and total disinterest!  The puppy wanted DIET food!  This might go back to when she barely started living with me, she couldn't chew puppy chow very well, and she liked big dog food better because she could chew it and it was big dog food.
I looked out the window and there she would be, food untouched, looking up at me with puppy eyes expecting the food that she wanted.  The anticipation of getting her way was bright in that young puppy dog face.  "Eat your own food."
Late for work, Bo still hadn't touched his food.  He still sat in his corner with a puppy eyed look saying he was sorry.  I decided that I would have to try getting him to eat at lunch time.  So I left and picked up Pam.  When we drove by the house again Bo was eating Angel's food and Angel was eating poop.
Maybe I should try putting animal fat on the food the way Mom and Dad do to make it smell better to the dogs.  Angel needs the nutrients in puppy food, Bo needs diet food, but animal fat kind of defeats the whole diet concept.  I don't know what to try next.
It's also possible I suppose that Angel wants the privilege of eating inside too.  I love those dogs but wow, Angel ate poop over Puppy Chow.  That sends a message.  If nothing else Bo's food for tomorrow is already dished up.

Being Someone's Hero?

In the Fiesta Mall of Mesa, Arizona there were a couple of kids trying to go up the down escalator.  I was on the top floor and needed to go down.  I watched their slow process for a couple of seconds and heard them complain that their legs were starting to hurt.  I quickly decided that I didn't want to wait for them.  I glanced around the up escalator and noticed that no one was on it or around it.
I quickly walked down the escalator.  The boys on the other one stopped and watched me, "Hey, that guy's smart," one observed since I was making much faster progress than they were.  As I passed them in the middle I was informed that I was their hero.
It's odd to think of yourself as being a hero for the simple act of going down an up escalator, you'd think the word would demand something more, more, demanding or something.
Anyway, I was amused by it.

A Nighttime Stroll Down Main in Mesa

This statue of Humpty Dumpty cracked me up mainly because it was in front of a beer and wine bar.  Was Humpty Dumpty drunk?  Is this a story to tell people to drink responsibly?  I'm not sure but it was funny to me at the time.  Kind of says, don't get too happy during Happy Hour.

This next statue I had to get a picture of as soon as I saw it and I ran down there to make sure it wouldn't get too dark before I could snap some pictures of it.

On a road trip Pam and I spotted a large animal just walking along the side of the road.  At first it looked like a calf.  But it wasn't quite walking right to be a cow.  We took a closer look, it had enormous Dumbo like ears and so we were thinking it was probably a donkey.  The car got closer and revealed finally that the animal that we were looking at was in fact the largest and fattest pig either of us had ever seen.

Later when I got my new camera I was talking to Pam about what kinds of pictures I wanted to get and mentioned that I wanted to get some of the animals that wandered into the streets of Pinon all the time, she replied that only one animal was worthy of a picture and that was the pig.  "A pig that size, "We'll see him again, he'll be hard to miss."

My thoughts were, "A pig that size can't have long to live, cause there is enough bacon on that fellow to feed a family of five breakfast for two years."

The statue made me think of that since it is of a fat pig, "Big Charlie Black," is the name of the statue.  The pig has an itch behind its ear but is too fat to reach it.

Poor Charlie Black, there he is trying to lift his foot up.

The next statue is of an newspaper boy and is entitled Truth.  Newspaper boys really are quite important whether they stand on street corners, ride bikes, or in the back of Mom and Dad's van their job brings and has brought people the news for generations.  And of course the Mesa Temple, a place where truth is learned.  I decided to get a different kind of shot of the temple and focus on getting the reflection in the fountain, the other two I took captured the reflection better but also aren't nearly as straight as this one.

The bell in front of Taco Bell is actually a part of the Permanent Statue Collection of Mesa.  It's fun because it is a real bell that you can ring, and it even sounds nice.

The top of these two is of a Native warrior.  And the next one of course is of one of my favorite animals, the wolf.  I checked out Sean and Keith's wolf design tee shirt and its actually pretty cool, even if it is making fun of people who wear wolf tee shirts.

What if Batman Wore a Hoodie?

Ever since I got this hoodie I've wanted to do some photos like this, in a few of the origin story comics they do portray the early Batman as trying a few things out before the bat costume.  It's been really nice to have a hoodie though because the weather here has been colder for Mesa as of late and its been raining from time to time.  I was going to take these shots in the Hotel Room, but Batman the streets were pretty empty and it was darker like Gotham City so I decided Why not?

Mesa Temple

The Mesa Temple was the 7th temple.  It is completely different from the Snowflake Temple.  Snowflake is very small and almost everything has to run by appointment because it is so tiny.  Mesa however is much larger and more grand.  There are several paintings in the temple that I've never seen before.  The statue in the above picture is from the Visitor's Center.

Around the top of the temple is the story of the area from the early natives to the Mormon Pioneers who settled here and built the temple.  On Friday I walked around the beautiful grounds and went into the Visitor's Center.  The Spanish speaking sisters thought it was so romantic that I baptized Pam.  Since I was thinking about Pam anyway I decided to do sealings.  One of the couples in the group were sealed in that very room where we were doing the work ten years ago.

One the Sealers was Samoan and did a couple of the sealings of children to parents in his native language.  It was nice.  After the sealing session we were able to go into the Celestial Room.

Last night I went back to the Temple.  From the time I moved up until Feb 5 I hadn't gone into a temple, now I have down an endowment session, sealings, and initiatories, all in the same month.

Going to the temple makes me think of Pam, yes I miss her, but being at the temple makes me feel better about it since I know that we will be together forever.

Pam loves cacti and thinks they are fascinating, walking the grounds and finding a garden area with lots of cacti made me want to share this place with her.  The nicest part of where I'm staying, and this makes up for a lot, is that it is so near the Temple of the Lord.

An interesting thing about the Mesa Temple, it was built during the same time period as the first temple in Hawaii, they are so similar in design that it can be difficult to tell them apart in some pictures, especially those taken at night.
The temple has been what has made this trip good.  I love the temple, and I'm looking forward to going there with Pam in just over a year.

Phoenix vs Mesa

A shoot from the Phoenix Airport.

The city of Phoenix at night was pretty from a distance but once we were in it I decided within a couple minutes that I hated the place with passion.  Especially since Pam called it a city that never sleeps, in my head I was thinking, "It's always this bad?"  It's too big for my taste and I wanted out of it as soon, there was no way that I would stay the night there.  After Pam left on her plane I left for Mesa.
Mesa is much more my taste; no where near as much traffic and I've gotten to go to the temple twice this weekend.  Mesa has had its ups and downs but I'm glad I'm here and not in Phoenix.  Mesa is such a peaceful place, its been nice to be able to walk around.  Even if I haven't been able to do the things that I was supposed to to.

I wanted to get a picture of the bears, and these kids seemed to have had the same idea.  Made a pretty cute picture.

Most of the statues around town have historical significance like this one.  A few of them like the pink chair and the Polar Bear with its two cubs are a tad random but still kind of cool.

The temple was pretty great tonight.  It's been a difficult day, between not being able to get my passport today and not really getting anything else done that I needed to, I really felt like I needed to visit the temple a second time.

As you can tell by the pictures it was late when I got to the temple.  It was too late for a session so I did initiatories which were nice.  My main complaints about Mesa are mainly about the difficulty I've had with the post offices and getting my passport and about my hotel, Knight's Inn.  Not going to stay here again.  At least their internet works, most of the time.  Going to the temple made the day feel and be much better.  Dad talked to me before I went and Mom talked to me after I got out and heard from a much happier me.

After the temple I walked to Pioneer Park and checked out the sights the pictures aren't great though since it was so dark.  A funny thing about Pioneer Park and the Temple.  They are across the street from each other and both are owned by the church.  Pioneer Park grass is yellow, just like most of the grass in Mesa.  The temple grass is green.

One thing that was kind of cool in the park, there was a sign that talked about Arizona's famous Honeymoon Trail.  Many cities and towns including Mesa were originally founded by Mormons.  For a while St. George in Southern Utah had the only operating temple.  The Honeymoon Trail refers to way people would go to travel from Mesa to St. George in order to get married.  It made me think of Pam, I'm just glad that we have planes to go to where we are going to get married.

President Obama and Wind

So, Pam's flight was supposed to take off at 12:00 right?  Well, thanks to the President it took off at 2:30 instead, and it's thanks to the high tail wind that she was able to get to Chicago for her lay over an hour faster than normal giving her fifteen minutes to get to the next plane.
You've got to admit that's a strange travel day.
The plane coming into Phoenix to pick up Pam was delayed for two hours along with all the other planes leaving from that airport, due to President Obama flying in and the added security measures the airport needed to put in place to protect our Commander and Chief.  The only reason she was able to get to the connecting flight was because of high winds pushing the plane.
Kind of cool that even though things didn't turn out quite as planned Heavenly Father made sure it was okay.
My day so far hasn't gone as planned at all.  I was so sleepy today that I slept in, so my early start on the day in reality is a VERY late start.  Those episodes I watched on Hulu didn't help much either.  But I'm up now and I'm going to go check out of the hotel here in Mesa and take a look at the Temple.

A Few Days Without My Honey

In a little while my sweetheart and I will drive to Phoenix where I will drop her off for her midnight plane going anywhere.  Sorry, the journey song just popped into my head.  She's actually going East to see some people.  Which means for the next few days I'm going to be on my own.
Being alone doesn't bother me, I've always liked having time to myself to think and to do the random stuff that I do.  Still though, I really love Pam, and I'm really going to miss her.  She needs this though, and it will be good to get a lot of the remaining wedding stuff out of the way.
I just asked Pam when the last time was that we were separated for this long, "Never," she said.  Maybe about 30 hours, "and that was painful," she said.  She has just shown me her countdown to the date, 65 days and I will finally be a married man!  April 23rd, here we come!

Lake Wheatfield

On Saturday it got up to 50 degrees in Pinon.  As I was blogging I went to the window and felt the warm sun and asked myself why on earth I was inside.  I got dressed for dog walking and took the dogs out.  There is still some ice on the ground that kept taking Angel by surprise, it was pretty funny to watch.
As I walked I decided that I wanted to go on a picnic with Pam.  I ran into her while walking the dogs and suggested it.  I was thinking we would find some spot in Pinon but she had other ideas.  We traveled to the beautiful Apache County, which has nothing to do with the Apache Nation since its right in the middle of Navajo Nation according to the map, but anywho, it was a beautiful frozen lake, and being closer to the mountains it was much colder over there.

Something that amused us a little, especially considering that it was 50 in Pinon and that we are in Arizona and people have a pretty set idea that Arizona is a hot place, was when we saw a man ice fishing.  Ice Fishing in Arizona, it was a fun little sight so we took a picture.  The picture after the ice-fisherman is me standing on the frozen lake.  Pam is realizing more and more that I am a bit of a daredevil.  At Lake Powell a couple of weeks ago she dared me to climb the mountain, so I climbed it; she didn't think that I would actually do it and what made it more fun is she came up too.  She did not however follow me onto the frozen lake.

So I have now climbed around Lake Powell and walked on a frozen lake in Arizona.  What adventures await now?

Trip to Lake Powell

Pam and I had a lot of fun when we went to Page, AZ.  We went up on a Friday during a three day week end.  After shopping in the Wal-Mart for a while where I bought my new camera we went to Lake Powell where we hiked up a very steep hill.

Engagement Bling

Here we are with our engagement bling.  Pam's engagement ring and my tie tac that she had made for me from a pearl I got in Redondo Beach, California.  Pearl is Pam's birthstone.  Eventually our wedding rings will also have Garnet in them which is my birthstone.  Since I've already looked up names I was curious about birthstones.

Garnet is supposed to protect the wearer from nightmares and it is supposed to offer guidance through the dark.

Pearls are connected with purity and happy and successful marriages.

We also had our engagement party with our work friends today it was pretty nice.  We had some great food to eat and hopefully Pam can get the recipe to that one dish that she really liked.

The math department also hosted a game and this is what I won.  Hmm, tasty looking.