Our share of Mornings

First day of this...

















And it ended like this...
















So instead, I had some of this...
















And then started working on this...





















Yes.
That's my planner.
My life be like.
BUSY.

The past few days have been super good, and super bad.
Good stuff first!!!

Firstly, I am the new Vice President of CHUVU, the community health club at UVU. This means I'll be President next year. There are currently 60 members and I'm having a BLAST so far!

Second, I got to listen to Clarence Jones speak at UVU. He is the author of a large majority of the "I Have A Dream" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. He was a close friend of MLK, and he served as his council and lawyer from the time he began to gain fame until the day he was assassinated. Clarence Jones is over 80 years old... he started singing us negro spirituals during his address. Such a funny old man. Something interesting I learned is that the end of MLK's speech where he gets into his "I have a dream"-ness was all ad lib, made up on the spot. None of that was written in the speech. SO AMAZING.

Third, I got this awesome fortune this week. Made my day.





















Fourth, Clark and I had an awesome date on Saturday! We went to Nicklecade, turned 5 dollars into nickles, and went wild. We even won the jackpot on one of the games!!! It was only 97 tickets, but I've never won a jackpot before so it was a monumental occasion in my life.

Winning the jackpot!!!


Clark doing what he does best....





















And we traded in all our tickets for Fruties! Best candy ever.

My body decided a 3-day weekend just wasn't sufficient, and a 4-day weekend would be more adequate. LOVE sick days. Also. Every SINGLE time I'm sick, people immediately ask me if I'm pregnant. Just to be clear, I'M NOT :) Sick days have their benefits though... now I can catch up on the good ol' blog.

I played event hostess last Tuesday morning where students had an opportunity to mingle with UVU's President Holland over a pancake breakfast. Well... they vaguely resembled pancakes. Descriptions of said breakfast item varied between two extremes: painfully crunchy and soggy cardboard. But, if I have learned one thing as a student, it is this: college kids will eat anything if it's free. And I mean anything. Pancakes with the President was a wild success, and the Dean of Students is still singing my praises to anyone who will listen. Highlight of the event: President walks up and says "Hey Hayley, what's the game plan?". I wasn't wearing my name tag. Always a good sign if the president of your university (with 30,000 students) knows you by name. I'm clearly going places in life, right?

I was asked to join the Community Health club presidency this week because I'm just not busy enough, right? Still debating on a course of action at this time. I also became the newest member of the UVU Special Olympics club. They are in the process of creating a UVU Special Olympics team right now, so I'll be helping to head that up. So excited to start working with special needs kids again, as I haven't had the opportunity to do so since working with Karlie during my senior year.

Clark and I had a reunion with Caitlin (my roommate from last year) over frozen yogurt Wednesday evening. It consisted mainly of girl talk, with Clark nodding and interjecting some comments every once in awhile. I miss that girl. Also, she's crushing on a boy so I'm hoping that a few double dates will follow! (That's a hint Caitlin. I know you're reading this...)

Friday through Monday, we were being fill-in parents up in South Jordan for my mom and dad, who were living the hard life on a cruise. Saturday, we met up with Dan and Callie for lunch at Settebello, an authentic Italian pizzaria in downtown SLC. They import their flour from Italy, they had a wood-burning oven handmade by artisans in Napoli... You would have though Clark had died and gone to heaven. It was DELISH. Highly recommended. Sunday night was Bryant's birthday... HE'S THIRTEEN. I'm getting old... Anyways, on Sunday we made his favorite dinner (ham balls) and invited the grandparents over and had a little party.

Meet Bryant... classic.


 He doesn't like cake. He likes pie.
And we got creative with the candles... each pie adds up to 13 haha.
















Mom and Dad got home around 9 on Sunday, and they made us ALL jealous by telling us about their fabulous cruise and how fun it was exploring Book of Mormon ruins. They brought me Mexican Vanilla though, so that MORE than made up for it. I'm telling you, vanilla from Mexico is fabulous. Let the dessert making begin.

It was a great weekend. But alas, all good things must come to an end. We lost a valuable member of our little family on Monday.
William, the beta fish.
He was a good fish and lived a full life of two years. He was a survivor, and once went 11 days without food during our wedding/honeymoon. (PETA, if you are reading this, it's ALL Clark's fault...)
After that comment, I got curious if PETA actually "protects" fish as well... 5 pages of links to articles on their website. Good grief.
Anyways... William... enjoy the fish tank in the sky little buddy.

Well, I've survived the majority of the first week of school. And I'm pretty sure I'll survive the rest of the week.

Pretty sure.

Some thoughts from the first week of school.
1. My Epidemiology and Biostatistics class is much harder than anticipated. My first assignment took me 2 hours. And it was on the simplified overview of the book chapter. I'm sure that much whining and complaining will find it's way into future posts.
2. My professor for "Modifying Health Behavior" is from Iowa. Or Ohio. Or Illinois. I can't remember. I zoned out after we reached minute 27 of his life story. He literally talked for almost an hour about himself. Monotone. While staring at the floor the entire time. I'm sure future classes will be just as fascinating.
3. "Consumer Health" will be my favorite class. I already know because the teacher made a "that's what she said" joke one the first day.
4. I think 18 credits was a bad idea. Maybe.

In other news, Clark got a Gold's Gym membership yesterday so we are officially work out buddies. We went tonight and it was GREAT. I miss working out so bad. My knee didn't though. It's still complaining. Probably won't stop for awhile.

Ok, so the best news of the week.. or the semester... or this year.
It's so great.
Ready??

I am graduating this fall. 

Yes. It's true.
After changing my major twice and failing/re-taking a number of classes my first two years, I naturally assumed I would be at least 5 years getting my bachelors degree.
Until I re-evaluated today. I have 6 classes and an internship left after this semester.
So I'll take 1-2 summer classes while I do my internship, and then take the rest during Fall of 2013.

And then I'm DONE.
Still feels unreal.
I'm sure I'll adjust.

We expected a relatively uneventful drive from Reno to Utah. And uneventful it was.
Until we passed Elko, Nevada.
Ladies and Gentlemen. The almost 22 year drought has ended.
Clark was pulled over for speeding.
















The proud owner of a brand new citation.





















Clark didn't realize that the speed limit changed from 75 to 65. He was going 80.
Luckily, we had an extremely nice officer who cited us at going 70 in a 65 instead of 80. Probably because we were really nice and cooperative. This dropped it from a speeding ticket to just a citation (which won't count on his license or our insurance, a speeding ticket would) and it saved us about $150 bucks.
THANK YOU OFFICER... um... Goicoechea.
If anyone knows how to pronounce that let me know.

In other news, I'm flat in bed with something resembling the flu.
And school starts tomorrow. OF COURSE.
My immune system obviously doesn't take my schedule into consideration.
Fingers crossed that it's gone by tomorrow.

So after getting close to 12 hours of sleep, we were wide-eyed and bushy-tailed! We had a great last day in San Francisco.We started off with breakfast at McDonalds. The breakfast at the hotel was too sketchy for my taste. Kinda sad how McDonalds was more safe than that, right?

After our nutritious breakfast, we walked across the street to Boudin Bakery where they make the sourdough bread and you can watch from the street. They make some crazy stuff out of bread, like sea turtles and crabs. Clark was particularly fond of the alligator though!
















We took a stroll down a less busy pier, and we came across this little Asian woman fishing with just a line and some bait. Much to our surprise, she was pulling in crabs!





















We headed back to Pier 39 one last time, and we passed by the Christmas tree. We had seen it a million times, but after taking a closer look we realized that it was a real tree. This thing is MASSIVE. (If you look closely, you can see me at the base by the green present.)





















After wandering around, we picked up some Subway and walked to the beach a few blocks away. It was beautiful, but very cold... and people were swimming in the water. I question their decision making process.
















After lunch, I decided that the hot chocolate from the previous evening wasn't going to satisfy my Ghiradelli cravings. So we shared a Gold Rush sundae... vanilla ice cream, melted peanut butter, hot fudge... My three favorite food groups.























With my sweet tooth being sufficiently satisfied, we moved on to more serious matters. Riding a cable car. Because I had never ridden one and I was dead-set on doing it. Luckily Clark puts up with my ridiculous demands.
















Seriously though, I was so excited.
















Just look at my face after we got off. Pure joy.
















We took one last jaunt down Lombard Street...





















And we said farewell to our scary hotel... seriously, this picture doesn't do it justice. It's one of those "you-had-to-be-there" situations.
















However, before we left, we had one last thing to do.
DUH.
















Clark and I did some real exploring when we found World War 1 bunkers by where we had parked. My dad would have loved these, I wish we had known they were there when we went two years ago!
















And finally... The Golden Gate Bridge.
















Represent! It's a UVU thing..

















Until next time San Francisco...

So yesterday, I was going to blog after returning to our hotel. But then I said "just rest your eyes a little bit. You've had a long day." So I shut my eyes and... fell asleep. Clark fell asleep too. We woke up at midnight to eat Oreos and Pringles and brush our teeth, but after that we crashed again! So here were our adventures in San Francisco yesterday!

We started off our day with a trip to the Oakland temple. Our friend Logan got married to his cute wife Nicole! Clark, Ty and Jeff were groomsmen.
















Also, we have been married for 7 months as January 2nd. How time flies!
















Cute boys.
















I love to see the temple.





















After the wedding and the luncheon, we headed back into San Francisco with Ty and Jeff. We started at Lombard street, where they PRETENDED like they had just finished longboarding down. Jeff did it for one curve, but it was too dangerous to do the whole thing.





















We hit up Pier 39 again. Alcatraz is in the background.
















And of course, we re-visited the resident sea lions. These two kept kissing.
Cutest thing ever.
















After Ty and Jeff left, we went to Boudin on Pier 39 and got clam chowder in their famous sourdough bread bowls. UH-MAZE-ING.






















We started making our way back to our hotel after that, and we began ducking in the fun shops lining the Embarcadero. We came across this little gem that sold sweet water taffy by the pound. They had apple pie, pomegranate, strawberry cheesecake, you name it. We grabbed a bag, filled it with our favorite flavors, and had a yummy little treat for the rest of the evening!
















We found another shop that sold giant candy. And guess what we found?
Giant gummy worm anyone?





















It started getting really cold, and we decided to get some hot chocolate for the rest of our walk home. And where do you get hot chocolate in San Francisco??
No brainer.





































A perfect end to a perfect day.

So today is day 2 of our vacation to San Francisco.
Yesterday was boring. It consisted of driving, stopping to fill up on gas, driving, filling up on gas again, driving some more, and then sleeping at a hotel in Reno. YAY.

Today however, we are in the greatest city on EARTH.
And we had some great adventures.

There it is... (Maybe I squealed. Maybe I didn't...)
















I could live here. Clark won't let me though.
















Pier 39. Love.
















Last time I came, these guys were all gone.
A marine biologist said they were off mating. So there was only one there. BOO.
Glad to see their hormones were under control today.
















Cuties.

Our lovely hotel room. I'll take a picture of the outside tomorrow.
Let's just say that when we pulled up I had a mini heart attack and I thought we might die here...
Don't judge a book by it's cover.
















View from our hotel on Lombard street.
















After we checked in, we went to Chinatown with Ty and Jeff, Clark's roommates from last year.
We got yummy food. We were the only ones at the Hunan Homes Restaurant.
















Ty and Jeff just being... Ty and Jeff.





















And our waiter was creeping on us.
He just stood there. THE WHOLE TIME.





















Then we went exploring Chinatown!
Here I am being politically correct.
















And then there was a parade!
Fireworks, dragons, drums.... so random.
We still have no idea why this was happening because everyone was yelling in Chinese...















Then we went to Lion King!
It was Clark's first time and my second time.
It was phenomenal.





















Then we drove back to the hotel, where (and trust me, this is unheard of in the San Francisco area) we have FREE PARKING with our hotel. Free. SO we have to park in this area, or earn ourselves a ticket. Or a trip to the impound lot.
Well... our parking lot is cramped. And some people don't know how to park. And sometimes... there's only one spot left, and you have to park there or risk losing possession of your car...
Luckily I have a husband that is BOMB at parking.
Picture evidence.






















True story. Clark couldn't get out on his side (obviously). I could barely get out of my door. I'm still not sure how Clark climbed over to my side and managed to get out, but he did.
Little miracles.
Can't wait to see what fun tomorrow brings!