Summer plans

Last week, James was offered and accepted an internship for the summer with the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke. He will be assisting accredited lawyers as they investigate claims of innocence from convicted felons, and pursue the freedom of those they believe were wrongfully convicted. James is very excited about the work he'll be doing!

*I* am also very excited about this internship. I am happy that James is interested in the work he'll be doing. I'm also thrilled that it's local--James has been applying for a number of internships, and not all of them would have been as ideal for our family. For instance, another offer that he received was from a public defender about two and a half hours from Durham. While he would have enjoyed the work, the location would definitely have made things challenging! Plus, the internship at Duke is paid, which is a big plus for a first-summer internship!

James starts work on the 24th of May. That gives us a few weeks after his finals, and we're planning a trip out to Utah. We'll be driving, and we're taking a circuitous route to visit family in Louisiana and Texas, which will be really nice. 

We'll get to Utah the second week of May. James gets to stay for about a week and a half, and then he's going to fly back to NC. But I'm in need of a good long visit, so I'm going to stay in Utah for another couple of weeks with the kids before heading back. James is going to take Shadow with him on the plane. I'm nervous enough about driving by myself from Utah to North Carolina with two small children, let alone a dog!

Then we'll have the rest of the summer to spend with our friends here in Durham. We're also hoping to take a little camping trip to the Smokies, which we passed through on our move out here last summer. The mountain forests were so beautiful, we've been determined to visit ever since. We'll probably just take a little weekend trip sometime in June. 

It promises to be a great summer!

We're Here!!!

We're here!!

It's been a pretty crazy week. Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent packing and cleaning. I hate packing. I would so much rather unpack. Unpacking is fun for me, finding all the new homes for things. But packing is torture. So I was very grateful to my husband, and my awesome parents who came over and helped with those Augean tasks.

Tuesday evening we were joined by many wonderful friends, family, and ward members to pack our moving van.

Thanks to everyone who came to help! Loading up went super fast, and it was nice to be able to visit with everyone before we left.

Wednesday was Travel Day 1. James and his brother Matthew drove the moving van. I had the car with my mother-in-law Charmaine, Joel and Shadow. The plan was for James and Matthew to drive nonstop, switching off driving/sleeping, while Mom and I followed more slowly. We actually stayed pretty close together Wednesday--over the mountains into Colorado, the van wasn't able to go very fast, so Mom and I were able to make up for our extra stops. We all had lunch and dinner together, which was nice.

Mom and I drove until about 2:30am before calling it a night, while James and Matthew pressed onward. We spent the night at a hotel in WaKeeney, Kansas.

So, I have decided that traveling with a baby (Joel-baby, at any rate) isn't so bad. But traveling with a dog is not so fun. First of all, pit stops take SO much longer, because of Shadow's needs, and because we had to take turns going to the restroom and whatnot, because one of us had to stay with the dog. Secondly, we decided to sneak Shadow into the hotels we stayed in, and that was super stressful! Fortunately, Shadow was an angel, and spent the nights quietly in his kennel. And we did our best to make our pit stops pleasant for all.

Thursday and Friday were travel days. Mom and I took turns driving. We made good time, all things considered. Thursday night we stayed in Paducah, Kentucky. When we got up on Friday morning, it was to the news that James and Matthew had arrived at the house in Durham. They crashed for a few hours. My father-in-law was already on a flight to Raleigh, and when he got there late in the morning, they started unloading the moving van. Meanwhile, Mom and I got to enjoy a scenic drive across Tennessee. The Smokey Mountains are beautiful!!

Close to midnight on Friday, Mom and I finally made it to Durham. We put Joel straight to bed. Shadow, on the other hand, ran crazy circles around the house and yard for awhile! He was clearly ecstatic. The guys had gotten everything into the house and returned the van. The furniture was more or less in place, and the beds were all set up. Shortly after Mom and I arrived, we all crashed for the night.

My in-laws left at about 1:00pm this afternoon for the airport. We are sooooooo grateful for all their help and company!

Shortly after the family left, James and I were treated to lunch by our new next-door neighbor Eileen. Talk about Southern hospitality! She came over this morning to say hello and invite us out. For lunch she took us to this fantastic Mexican place attached to a Mexican market. It was delightful, and we were so impressed by her generosity and welcome.

From there we went shopping. After Home Depot, we went to Costco and purchased our first membership! We're going to try it out for a year and see if it's worth it for us. I love Costco, we'll just have to make sure we don't waste too much.

The rest of the day we spent unpacking. Joel enjoyed collecting the plastic bags we'd used to cushion dishes and things as we worked, it was super cute. We finished unpacking and organizing the kitchen, yay! We also got most of Joel's room set up, we'll finish that tomorrow. There's still TONS to do, but it feels good to have made this much progress.

Tomorrow we get to go to our new ward for the first time, and we're very excited. The next few days have a lot of unpacking, plus getting other things settled from moving. On Tuesday I have my first appointment at the birth center where I'll be delivering in September. There will be lots to keep us busy!

Much love to you all!

Tournaments, Seminars, and Vehicular Adventures

Well, it was an adventurous weekend.

Saturday morning we went up to West Jordan for the Friendship Open, where I competed with our demonstration team. James is still out because of his internship (which finishes this week...wow, time flies!) but I was grateful for his morale support! This was our first performance following the latest round of auditions, and it was definitely trial-by-fire for the newbies. Sans a few mishaps, the demo went well, although I was feeling VERY pregnant! James is planning to start back up in April. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back to the team relatively quickly after Baby J is born. We'll see how it goes!

 

We left the tournament immediately following the demo team competition, and made our preparations. Saturday afternoon we drove to Colorado so that I could attend a USAT referee seminar there. We arrived in CO around 12:30 and settled in for the night. We had decided to try sleeping out in our car, and it turned out way better than we expected. We had taken the seats out of my car, and piled the back with couch cushions, camping pads, sleeping bags, pillows and blankets. We were very comfortable (which was a concern, considering my prego state).

The referee seminar was great. I attended the CO seminar last year, and enjoyed the experience, so I was glad it worked out for me to go again this year. The seminar was taught by Master Bob McKenna and Master Linda Kimmich, both of whom I had met previously at Nationals, and whom I respect a great deal. I was glad to get updated information, and spend time with some great referees.

We left for home after the seminar. It's an 8-hour trip, and we took turns driving for about two hours at a time. We were only about 50 miles from home, down Spanish Fork canyon, when a couple of deer darted out in front of us. James was asleep at the time. I was able to dodge the first deer, but the second smacked right into us, and then went under the car. It scared the living daylights out of me, and James woke in a panic, not knowing what had happened. I pulled over, my adrenaline going like crazy. Some guys behind us swerved around the deer and stopped; they came back to check on us, then moved the deer out of the road. Once my heart had stopped pounding, we continued on our way, but only for a few more miles before the car gave out. The radiator had clearly been damaged, and was leaking fluid.

We called for roadside assistance. (Thank goodness for cell phones!) It took ages for the insurance company to coordinate. Thankfully we had all those blankets in the car with us! But because we were in such a remote area, the cost of towing was prohibitively expensive. James ended up calling his family. To our extreme relief and gratitude, James's brother Matthew was able and willing to come get us. When he arrived, he was able to tow us a few miles down the canyon to a rest stop (those few miles were pretty terrifying, not going to lie!) and then drove us home. It was about 4:30am by the time we finally made it! James got about an hour of sleep before he had to be up again to get to work in Salt Lake.

This afternoon was spent dealing with the car. James's brothers, bless them!, rented a truck and went back down the canyon for my car. They picked me up and we took it to the auto shop. Fortunately our insurance covers a rental car, so I was picked up at the shop by the rental company. We're still waiting for our insurance appraiser to evaluate the estimate from the auto shop, but we're hopeful that the car is not totaled, and we'll be getting Roxanne back soon. Fortunately, I also had a prenatal appointment this morning, and everything was fine with me and Baby J.

We are grateful that we were not hurt at all, and we are so grateful to James's family for their help and generosity, and we are grateful for insurance, and we are grateful to be home. Ironically, we're headed back to Colorado this weekend for their state championship. You can be assured that we'll be praying for an uneventful trip!!

Nationals Recap

Last week James and I went to Chicago for the USA Taekwondo National Championships. The two of us left Monday afternoon and drove straight through--a trip which ended up lasting about 26 hours, due to the awesome traffic in downtown Chicago. Of course, upon arriving we had time for a quick shower before jumping right back into the car to get me to a referee meeting that night at McCormick Place. Needless to say, we were pretty sick of being in the car by the time we finally got to bed that night!

Thursday, July 3rd was the first day of competition. Of our team of 8 (not counting coaches and parents), only Lexi competed that day, in board breaking. I spent the day refereeing, one of my most favorite pursuits. Although I did not get to spend much time in the center, I still learned a lot and met some great people.

On the Fourth of July, I got to be solely an athlete. We had a couple of competitors that day - Cade competed in board breaking and weapons, and Lexi in sparring. We had planned to go out to the Navy Pier that night for fireworks, but never had the chance. The Demonstration Team competition was that night, and despite a 5pm call time, we did not end up competing until about 10:30pm. We watched the tiny bit of fireworks we could see out the window of McCormick Place before setting up for our demo.

Demo Team was, in a word, disappointing. Don't get me wrong, we had a great performance, one of our best. Our energy was great, and though we had a few flubs, we felt great about what we accomplished. But we took last place. Fifth out of five.

We still don't know why. Watching the other teams, it frankly doesn't make sense. We should have placed, at least. We had strong technique, great energy, good team unity. The only thing we can figure is that perhaps we got docked for something. We learned later that we weren't supposed to use a chair in our demonstration--even though I had asked one of the Vice Chairs this question specifically earlier that day, and he said we were fine. It's possible we were deducted for it. We don't know for sure. Maybe the judges just really didn't like our demo. Who knows. It was a huge disappointment for all of us. Still, we feel proud of our performance. We all worked very hard to achieve what we did, and if I do say so myself, we looked great out there.

Friday and Saturday I was back as a referee. I have to say, it was a lot harder this year, with my team there. In the past, I have gone alone, and have been able to focus entirely upon refereeing. But this year, I kept checking my phone, to see who was fighting or how somebody scored. My five-minute breaks were usually spent dashing over to wherever my team was, to spend those few minutes with my husband and the group. The hardest part was when they all went out without me--to the aquarium, to the Navy Pier. Alas. But I enjoyed refereeing, as I always do, and it was still more enjoyable to have my team to go home to in the evenings.

All in all, our little team of 8 took home 3 medals: Brennon, my student, won the bronze medal in a large sparring division of 28 red belts, which made me very proud. Renee, one of our adult students, took home a bronze in board breaking (it was super fun to watch her with her baby bump--Renee is due in October!). And our friend Kristen won the silver medal in her weapons division, which was very exciting.

And after a loooong drive back to Utah (only 24 hours, but it seemed like much longer!), it feels so good to be home.

The Utah Summer Games

This past weekend, James and I competed at the Utah Summer Games, in Cedar City. As a side note, one could potentially argue that mine and James' romance began at the Summer Games a year ago. With and without that, it remains one of my top favorite tournaments, a highlight of my summer each year.

We drove down to Cedar City early on Friday morning, joined in our car by the fabulous Ruth Bartholomew, who regaled us with tales of hilarity and woe (but even those were hilarious--that's Ruth!) Our group was a little more scattered this year than it usually is--normally the whole team goes down early on Friday to go hiking before the evening events. But only a few of us went down early this year, so we nixed the hike in favor of extra swimming and play. At 5pm, we went over to the tournament venue to get set up, attend the referee seminar for black belts, and practice with the demonstration team. Then, we all went out to dinner, went swimming at the hotel, and played a few rounds of Werewolf before heading to bed. Well, some of us went to bed. I'm told the young girls on our team stayed up half the night giggling.

Saturday morning we had a walk-through of our demo at 8am, followed by a meeting at 8:30am for all the black belts in attendance. The tournament started at 9am, with the bow-in, national anthem, and announcements. The Demonstration Team competition was the first event, so we got booted out into the hall--Miss Whitnee, our coach, does not allow us to watch other teams perform, firm in her belief that we'll wig ourselves out. So we stayed out in the hall, warming up, meditating, and working away nerves.

Our performance was good, though there were several issues, the most significant being the failure of the sound system--our music cut out a couple of times, sometimes continuing to play, sometimes stopping, both of which threw us off. Lame sauce. Nonetheless, we were proud of our performance, which you can watch here:



The teams were called up for the presentations of medals, and we were in some suspense, particularly because we hadn't been allowed to watch the other teams, and so we had no way to know how we compared. The third place team was announced, and we waited with baited breath until second was announced, and we knew we had won. Hip hip hooray!
After Demonstration Teams came the Poomsae (forms) competition. They started with black belts, and mine was the very first division. I was in a group of five, one of whom was my teammate and student Kristen. I performed Shipjin, and though it was not my best, it was still strong, and I was delighted to receive the gold medal for my division.

James' division was up shortly thereafter, and he too was in a group of five. He performed Keumgang, and did an excellent job. As it turned out, he tied for 2nd, and so he got to perform again, side-by-side with the guy he tied with. He did a great job, and received the unanimous vote from all five judges. James definitely earned his silver medal!!

After Poomsae, I became a referee for the rest of the day. James spent most of the afternoon corner judging; he also got to be a center referee for the first time. (He says he was petrified; I watched most of the match, and he did just fine.) James also competed in weapons, but started his performance with his routine from the demo team, rather than his solo form, and it really messed him up. He was not surprised, but also not upset, when he did not place, and is determined to win in his division at Nationals in two weeks.

We had a great time at the Utah Summer Games. James and I both love to compete, and we especially love being on the demo team together. One of the best parts of our relationship is our mutual love for Taekwondo; it means we always have a lot to talk about and we get to spend a lot of time together that we wouldn't otherwise have. Life is great!

Life is good!

Last week was Spring Break at the studio. While James still had school, this still opened up a lot of free time for us both--of which we took full advantage!

On Monday we went for another test flight at the Discovery Space Center in American Fork. These test flights help the flight directors figure out what's working and what's not working, with regards to the controls as well as the stories. Unfortunately, this test flight wasn't nearly as exciting as our last one. But we still enjoyed the company!

That day, I also embarked on Camp NaNoWriMo. This is a 30-day writing challenge hosted by National Novel Writing Month. I am attempting to write 30,000 words of the third book in our trilogy, between April 1 and April 30. It's been slow going thus far, though I have been making steady progress. Goals always help me stay focused better, so I took on the challenge.

For family home evening that night, we put together our 72-hour kit. It's something I've wanted to have for awhile, and especially now that we're married, I wanted to have what was needed for both of us. I looked at a couple of different websites for ideas of what to put in our kit. For example, we did not put any bedding or things like that into our kit, although we did figure out a method for carrying our sleeping bags if we did happen to need them. We looked around at some water filtration options, but didn't find anything we liked within our budget. So we are storing 3 gallons of water alongside our kit, and going from there for now. We did include one spare set of clothing and undergarments, including socks. This is in addition to food, first aid, and other general supplies we pulled from the lists' suggestions. I felt a lot better about life once we had it all put together.

Tuesday was temple day. James got out of school at 2pm, and we drove up to the Draper Temple for a session. James had never been to Draper, and we both found it to be lovely. The woodwork in this temple is particularly beautiful. It was nice to have extra time to spend. Many of our temple trips are on a pretty tight schedule, stuffed in between school and the studio. Being on Spring Break allowed us to linger in the Celestial Room, which is always a powerful experience. Afterward we headed to Carrabba's for dinner. It's a personal favorite of ours, with several important occasions having taken place there.

That evening we took my ring in to get 're-dipped', a process that we were encouraged to have done every six months. Basically they recoat the metal of my engagement ring to make it all shiny again, as well as cleaning the whole thing. Unfortunately, this meant parting with my ring for two days, and after about ten minutes, I thought I was going to lose my mind. (I've gotten VERY accustomed to wearing it!) So James, dear that he is, bought me a substitute ring to wear while mine was gone. However, I'll tell you--totally worth it! My ring was SO much brighter when we got it back. I couldn't believe how much more the diamonds sparkled. We were very impressed.

On Friday, I donated blood--finally. I had attempted to donate blood alongside James several weeks ago, but was turned down due to my low hemoglobin. I was pleased to be accepted for donation this time around. However, my visit resulted in a rather terrible bruise on my arm! This is my bruise, six days later.

My students yesterday decided that I must have been battling with elephants! Of course, my boss (tongue-in-cheek) asked if my husband was abusing me. Either way, it's a pretty impressive bruise for a relatively low-key blood draw.

Over the weekend, James and I watched General Conference. To my surprise, my mother-in-law offered us her tickets to the Sunday morning session. I was delighted! For having lived in Utah pretty much my whole life, I have never actually attended a session of General Conference in the Conference Center. And it was lovely, sans the ticket-beggers and protesters (the former actually bothered me more than the latter, strangely enough). I was glad we got to attend Sunday morning in particular, because I have always loved listening to Music & the Spoken Word prior to that session, and it was even better live. So so so wonderful--as was conference as a whole! I felt spiritually recharged.

On Tuesday night, I decided to reenact one of my favorite childhood memories. Throughout my growing-up years, my mother would periodically make homemade pizza, which was almost always accompanied by homemade cinnamon rolls. I loved this meal, and on Tuesday I succumbed to a hankering for it. Thank goodness for a patient husband! We didn't eat until about 11:30pm that night. But I think he will agree that it was totally worth it! The pizza turned out great, as did the cinnamon rolls that followed! All from scratch.

This weekend, we are headed to Arches National Park for a little camping trip. This is our "spring break" getaway, and our first camping trip together. It's also our first chance to use the sleeping bags and tent that James' mother gave him for his birthday. We're super excited!

Life is good!

Adventures, Holley-Style

Last weekend I attended a referee seminar in Aurora, Colorado. The seminar itself was old hat, but getting there and back turned out to be rather perilous!

The seminar started at 10am on Sunday, so James and I left just after midnight. We had driven about an hour down Spanish Fork canyon, when my car broke down. Poor Roxanne! We couldn't get the car to restart, and after a little while, I decided to call my parents. Just so you know, I have the best parents on the face of the planet. They got up in the middle of the night and drove an hour to come rescue us. By the time they arrived, we'd gotten Roxanne started again, so they let us take their car, in the hopes of still making the seminar, and limped Roxanne back home. Best Parent Award!

We arrived just in time for my seminar. I spent eight hours reviewing referee knowledge, while James attended sacrament at a local ward, and spent most of the afternoon reading at a nearby park. When my seminar finished, we went out to dinner, then began our return journey. What had been a pleasant and mild trip into Colorado became a stressful and at times frightening journey home, as it snowed throughout our trek back across the Colorado mountains. This was succeeded by almost--very nearly--running out of gas just into Utah (yay for answered prayers!) and then snow all the way through Spanish Fork canyon. We made it home at about 3:30 in the morning, and needless to say, we were incredibly grateful to climb into bed!

Yesterday we competed at the Friendship Open, a martial arts tournament held at Pursuit of Mastery in West Jordan. James and I are both members of our school's demonstration team, Beyond Force. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, demo team performances usually comprise a variety of martial arts elements, including kicks, self defense, tricks & flips, board breaking, weapons, and more. Demonstrations like this are supposed to show off the very best of martial arts--they're supposed to be cool. Our demo team has been around for three years now, which is still fairly young, though we are among the top-ranked teams in Utah.

That said, this was a so-so demo for us, at yesterday's tournament, due to a couple of things: first of all, we were missing a third of our team, including a couple of very crucial people for some of our best tricks. Second, we had two brand new team members, who auditioned and made the team last week. That means they'd just just just learned the choreography of the pieces they were in, which means things were still kind of rough. Auditions being last week also meant that we put this demo together in the last week. Needless to say, not our best demo ever. But still a decent job:


We hung around at the tournament most of the day, because adult black belts were the very last division to compete. *Sigh* But once our turn finally came, we had an excellent time of it. James competed first in forms. He did an excellent sport poomsae-style Keumgang. Because this particular school (and therefore most of the judges) don't follow this style, he was not highly scored. But I was incredibly proud of his performance, which will earn him much higher grades at the State Championships next weekend.

The female division went next. I unfortunately had to compete against my friend (and student) Kristen, but that sometimes cannot be helped. I performed Shipjin, the 5th degree black belt form, and one of my all-time favorites. If I do say so myself, it was an excellent Shipjin. But when I finished, I was heartily teased for slipping up during my introduction, when I almost forgot my new last name! James is still teasing me about it, and probably will for awhile to come.

Lastly came James' weapons form. He competed with a nunchuku form he created himself, which he has worked hard on. He received high marks, and ended up with a silver medal. And, as James would be sure to tell you, the guy who received the gold dropped his weapon (an enormous error) so should not have gotten as high of scores as he did. Oh well. James did remarkably well, and was very pleased with his performance.