Fort Lauderdale Boat Show

We did one of the funnest things yet in Fort Lauderdale. Downtown has canals running all through it so every year they decorate boats and put on a Christmas parade. We really lucked out this year because instead of having to search for a spot and watch it with hundreds of people we had front row seats, lots of food, friends, and plenty of space. My friend, Melanie is renting a house right on the canal so she invited Mark and me to watch it from her backyard. She and her husband got invited to two different parties (which meant we did too) that had tons of food. One was the owner's that she is renting from and the other was the Mayor of Fort Lauderdale's party, who lives next door to her. It was so much fun! We ate cookies, food, drank hot chocolate and egg nog and hung out.

A Favorite Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving turned out to be one of our favorites. It was so nice to spend time with Mark and just hang out all day. We had planned on having Thanksgiving with a group of friends but things changed when the hosting family got sick and canceled the night before. So we decided to go to the beach in the morning and then come back and have our own dinner. We were so excited!
We spent about 4 hours at a beach called Red Reef Park that had great snorkeling. It was the most perfect day with water about 78 degrees. Mark mostly did the snorkeling while I laid in the sun. I was afraid of getting stung by the many jellyfish.
We saw tons of these little ones washed up on the shore.





Here is a picture of our Thanksgiving dinner. We chose to do a little chicken since there was no way of eating a whole turkey with just Mark and I. We were so proud of ourselves, we made the whole thing including a banana cream pie in only 2 hours.


I had to post this next picture since I thought it was hilarious. I got up to get something that we forgot in the kitchen and the view I had of Mark when I was coming back in was so funny. We had this huge table of food with only Mark sitting at it wearing a napkin tucked into his shirt. I should never underestimate how much Mark can eat. Besides one square, he ate the whole pan of Jello just so we wouldn't have to put it away in our fridge. That's what I call taking it for the team! After the dinner we finished the night watching Christmas movies. It was so much fun!!

Kids, you've got to love 'em

One of the perks about being a violin teacher is that you get little random gifts from your students. I love seeing the excitement in their little faces when they give them to me. Sometimes I have no idea what the gifts are but I still think they are so cute!

These are two things I got a couple of weeks ago. One student brought me a miniature pineapple from a plant in her garden. I told her I was going to take it home for my husband to see and the whole week after she kept asking if I had brought it home yet. It was pretty cute. The other is the red feather my 5 year old student made for me. She is a little Korean girl who doesn't know much English but laughs at everything I say even if I am not trying to be funny. For example, one of the pieces I taught her started with the note c and was played 3x in row. She thought it was the funniest thing. Since then she always goes back to that song during the lesson and points to the notes saying "C,C,C" and then laughs really hard. She is my favorite because she is always so happy and funny.
This past Wednesday she brought me another present. This time it was a note folded up into a distorted square with a picture of me and her with a little message she had written. It was the cutest thing!



On the back she told me this picture was of me. Isn't there a striking resemblance?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since Thanksgiving is coming up and we will be spending it with friends this year I thought we should keep a family tradition going on the blog.
Each Thanksgiving my Mom likes to make things cheezy by going around the table and saying one thing that we are thankful for before we can eat. Since we won't be there this year I thought we would write down one thing that we are thankful for. Mark (who didn't want to post this) says he is thankful that he lives close enough to the school that he can ride his bike. I am thankful that my life has been enriched by the diverse people I have met.
In honor of Thanksgiving I will post my collection of Pilgrims and Indians I got for 80% off/$1 at Michaels! Whoo-hoo!! Mom-I know you're excited! :)


Aren't they cute? My personal favorites are the middle ones (seashell men). Those are actually ones we got in the Bahamas on our Honeymoon. :)

Job Switch for the Better

This past week I got fed up with the music studio I work for so I quit my job. There were so many problems with this job like "mistakes" in my paycheck (which I still haven't gotten paid for), late paychecks, last minute scheduling issues, driving an hour each day to teach, never having enough time to work on our place, not understanding what the parents and owners would laugh about in Korean, not being able to teach with the right books, and not getting the salary I am worth as a music teacher. After all those reasons, I was way over due with the quitting process.

The good news is that I got an awesome new job!!!! The guy who hires for Delta Airlines is in our ward and he definitely has the hookups with travel. If you work for him you, your husband, parents, and kids can all fly for free. I still have no clue why he has been so nice to me. I seriously LOVE that guy because I just gave him my application a couple of weeks ago and there was a huge waiting list and still is for the Delta jobs. I also have the best shift of anyone I know. All I have to do is clean airplanes from 4-9 p.m. every Tuesday. Everyone else is working until 3 a.m. I was hearing that there is a ton of down time too while you are waiting for planes to come in. You may be thinking...who wants to clean airplanes? I do!!! As long as I have gloves I can do anything. From the places we have lived in, I have cleaned a lot of disgusting things and let me tell ya-gloves are magic. Starting on December 17 Mark and I, and my parents can fly anywhere (including international flights) for FREE!!! I am so excited!!

Here I am in my dorky-way-too-big-for-me airport outfit/dress. If anyone needs a quick Halloween costume, I've got it. It's even bright orange. :)

Yay! I've been tagged!!

I am so excited that Julie tagged me. Now I can update our blog without coming up with an idea to write about. Thanks Julie!

8 TV shows I watch
1. The Office 2. Lost 3. Monk 4. I Love Lucy 5. Family Matters (It's all about those great TGIF shows) 6. American Idol 7. educational shows about space 8. Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel
8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Cafe Rio 2.The Blue Iguana 3. Souper Salad 4. Cheesecake Factory 5. The Lion House (I'm with you Julie ) 6. Subway 7. Papa Johns Pizza 8. Anything Mexican
8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. painted the ceiling in the hallway 2. cleaned my house 3. exchanged frozen meals with friends 4. went to home depot-and walked home after 5. did laundry-saw a live cockroach while at it 6. ripped up the moldy floor in our closet-saw a dead cockroach while at it 7. talked to Mom, Mark, Emilee, Emily, Chelsea, and Allison on the phone 8. bought Mark a pink back massager for $2 at the Linens n' Things closing sale
8 Things I’m looking forward to
1. being able to fly anywhere I want for free! 2. finishing our condo 3. flying home at Christmas4. Emily's wedding 5. Mark done with finals 6. getting a new calling 7. going to the beach 8.eating the cake that is cooling
8 Things on my Wish List
1. Hiring someone to finish our condo for me 2. To never hear Mark say this again: "Beth, I've got to do this." (meaning stop talking to me, I have to study) 3. More time 4. Have my family come visit 5. Going to Disney World or the Keys 6. A date with Mark 7. new necklaces 8. world peace-who doesn't want that one :)
8 Things I Love
1. Mark 2. my family 3. playing my violin 4. the satisfaction I get when I create something I really like 5. the smell of new shoes 6. hot chocolate with candy canes in them 7. the sun on my skin 8. learning how to do something new (that I choose of course)
8 things I hate
1. Flaky people 2. a messy house 3. sticky kids-you know the kind I am talking about 4. dogs-to make it worse, they always love me 5. video games 6. doing the dishes 7. thinking of ideas for dinner 8. being cold

Baby Shower

One of the dental wives is pregnant so we threw her a baby shower last week. Instead of doing a normal baby game type shower, we decided to surprise her and take her to get a pedicure. I was super excited because I had never had a pedicure before. It was so much fun to hang out and do girl stuff. The only thing I am worried about now is getting addicted to pedicures. I want to do it again soon!

The Fat Iguana

I know what you're thinking, "Enough with the huge lizards!" Since we don't have kids, we have to keep our blog interesting somehow. Also, if you are like me then you will want to keep looking at things you don't see in Utah everyday. You can consider it like another episode on the Discovery channel. I'll even share something new I learned about iguanas. I learned that iguanas climb trees. Mark was chasing one and it hid up in a tree. Every time we see these lizards and iguanas it reminds me of how much our nephew Conrad would love all this stuff. This post is for you Conrad!

"Ketchup"

You are probably wondering why I have a picture of Mark in a ketchup suit. The reason is that I didn't have a picture for this posting. Lets be honest, a posting without a picture is boring... you should thank me. :) I thought since I haven't posted in a couple of weeks that I should "catch-up" on what we have been up to.
Here is the rundown since the last post:
A couple of weeks ago, I got a new calling to be Sister L's missionary companion. I was overwhelmed when they gave me this calling considering the fact I had never served a mission and sometimes cannot understand what Sister L is saying. I feel a little inadequate but am glad to have the opportunity to do missionary work. Before I met Mark, I had a difficult time deciding whether or not to hand in my mission papers. I can't complain about this calling since Heavenly Father is probably giving me another opportunity.
I also just got another part-time job this past week. A girl in our ward just had premature twins about a month ago. Her husband is also in dental school so life is pretty busy for her. She asked me to come watch her twins in the mornings three days a week so she can get a little sleep. It is the easiest job I have ever had. The babies just sleep until they are hungry and then I feed one of them. They are so cute and it is fun to be around newborns.
The other job I have is teaching violin at a music studio. The students are mostly Korean kids who actually practice! It is such a nice change. I also like it because I don't have to worry about parents being irresponsible with payments since the owners take care of all of that.
What else....I joined a community orchestra so I can play my violin again. It has been really good for me especially since I have gotten a little rusty from not playing in a while. We have our first concert in a week and we sound really bad. :) It is not the most prestigious orchestra but I enjoy playing again.
Other than doing those things, I spend any extra time fixing up our condo and hanging out with Mark whenever he has time.
What has Mark been up to???? Studying. What more can I say? October is a hard month he tells me so I better get used to it. He also started switching out our bathroom vanity. Yay!! I have been waiting for that moment ever since we moved in. One of our bathrooms has been off limits since it smelled like...I won't even tell you. I don't want to gross you out. I finally got up the courage to go clean the toilet a couple weeks ago. It took me 3 hours.
Mark also helped me substitute teach the the sunbeams last Sunday. After that I was really grateful for my calling. We even had one little girl pee in her chair during singing time. Luckily her mom was in the room so we didn't have to clean it up.

My Future Dentist

Doesn't he look cute in scrubs? Looking at him in scrubs everyday is one of my personal favorites of dental school. :)

I thought since Mark is the reason we are out here, that this blog post should be an update on Mark's view of life in Florida. He spends most of his time going to school and studying (or talking about how he needs to study). I lied, that is really my view of Mark's life. :)
Besides the never-ending school work, Mark is pretty content with life out here. He has met some great friends in the dental program. Their group is also referred to as the "TMC" or "True Mormon Clan." Some of the other dental students were pretty surprised to hear that they were mormons. One of Mark's friends, who's wife and sister-in-law drop him off everyday, was asked if he was a polygamist. Pretty funny huh?
I asked Mark what his favorite class was and he said, "gym class." Yeah right, not falling for that one. What I think he meant was going to play basketball against the med students each Thursday. I know he also likes his Anatomy lab and making teeth.
Another thing he loves that may be up there with snowboarding is snorkeling. He went a couple of weeks ago with his friends to Red Reef Park. Since then, he has been so excited to go again and even brought his snorkeling gear with us to the swimming pool on Monday. We planned on going yesterday but ended up going to Fort Lauderdale Beach instead because of the rip tide warning from Hurricane Ike. Instead, Mark used his snorkel gear by the shore line for seashell watching and we played in the wakes. It was pretty fun especially for me because I hadn't been to the beach since we flew out here in March. The water was pretty warm and the waves were extra big because of the hurricanes.
Warning! You may want to put on some sunglasses to protect your eyes before viewing these pictures. We are still pretty white.

Are we still in the U.S.?

One difference that I am still getting used to is the diversity. I went to the doctor's office a couple of weeks after we moved here and I was the only white person. This even included pictures on the wall.
Our ward also has a lot of diversity. Our Bishop is black and has only been a convert for 5 years. You can tell he is really inspired and so friendly. I got a new visiting teaching companion on Sunday. The only thing is I have no idea how to say her name. This is how you spell it...Fiapito Leali'ie'e. Have any ideas on how you say that, let me know. I think for now I will just call her sister L. She is a 6o year old lady from Samoa. When she introduced herself I just said "nice to meet you" because I had no idea what she said her name was. She is really sweet, after we met she said, "You're new to ward? Don't worry...this land is your land, this ward is your ward, this family is your family."
My last experience wasn't such a good one. Over the weekend, I got lost in downtown Miami. I was driving around in a Cuban community where nobody spoke English. Before I knew I was in that community, I stopped at a gas station to ask how to get back on the freeway. The first guy I asked spoke Spanish. The only thing I got out of the confusing conversation was something about a car wash. After that I went into the gas station to ask the cashier. He also spoke Spanish and I don't have a clue what he said. I was trying to sort through all the French classes I took and remember how to say, "I don't speak Spanish" in Spanish. What came out was "No habla Espanol" so I'm sure that made a lot of sense. :) After wondering why no one spoke English, I walked out of the gas station and saw that all the signs around me were in a different language. Luckily I found a Walgreens a couple of blocks away where people spoke English again. Boy am I grateful for Walgreens. :)
Another diverse part of Florida is the wildlife. Mark and I have seen so many different species. A couple of weeks ago we were at a park and there was a possum that started walking across the sidewalk. It was so funny and random. We have also seen baby frogs around our condo, swarms of dragon flies, tons of lizards, toads hopping around our swimming pool, huge birds everywhere, and our favorite part-the wildlife in the canal that runs through our condo
complex. All of the canals in the area run to the ocean and people actually fish in them. We have already seen iguanas, turtles, huge fish, and these cool lizards that run on water and jump. I have to add one more...Just now we saw a raccoon climbing up our steps to our apartment. That was random. Here are pictures of some of the things we have seen:


These are the birds we see most often hanging around by the canal.



We went outside one afternoon and saw a family of iguanas hanging out by the canal. We probably looked more like tourists than Florida residents since it was our first iguana experience.





We saw this iguana on Sunday. It let us get about three feet from it.



Mark with the Iguana

Saying Goodbye

The only downer about moving here is that we had to say goodbye to all our wonderful family and friends before we left. Here are some pics the morning we drove out. We miss you and love you tons!








I have to admit, there is one person I miss the most. That is my little friend Mollie. Since she was about 4 months old I have had the opportunity to watch her a couple times a week. I was joking around before we left that I wish there was a slide-show of all our good times like they do on American Idol. In honor of all our good times I'll just write down all the funny things she does and post a few pictures. You should push play to get the real effect.

Famous Mollie Quotes: