Good Grief

First, I just want to apologize. If you received an email from me claiming that I was in London and had been robbed at gunpoint, don't send the creep who did it any money. I'm fine, I'm in Utah, safe and sound.

For future reference, if I WAS in Europe with no money, I would not send out a mass email to all of my friends, along with many people I haven't actually talked to in months or even years. Initially, I would talk to the nice people at the airport, or if I got desperate, the American Embassy. If that didn't work, I would call 1st - my parents, 2nd - my sister, 3rd - one of my close friends whose phone number I actually have memorized. That would be a short list.

I do find it almost miraculous that this hacker chose to do this on a week when I am indeed headed for Europe, and right after I really did get shot at in a grocery store.

The upside of this is that I found out how many true friends I have who called to check on me, offered to actually send me the money, and just generally worried about me. I was also able to talk to a lot of people who I haven't been in touch with for awhile. I guess now I know how to get your attention! (Although I must say I was marginally offended that people think so little of my English abilities)

I have finally gotten back into my email account and changed my password. I also found out that the person who did it was accessing my account from NIGERIA. Really? Nigeria?

Well, after finding out Landon was going to be stuck in Switzerland by himself for 6 days, after spending 2 days in the ICU with my sister (who is home and well now, thankfully), after someone hacked into both my Gmail and Facebook accounts...Come on, life, want to pull another football out from under me this week? Go ahead, I can so take you.

One week down

Landon left for Switzerland one week ago today. We've had many separations since he declared his Geology major, but this will be by far the longest. I'm overjoyed that he has these opportunities to travel, network with experts from all over the country (and the world!), and gain valuable experience that will help him find a teaching position in a few years. But I hate having him gone. Here's a little update on some of what he's been doing:

Finding long-lost cousins?

 Studying the anatomy of a marmot.

 Enjoying the scenery.

Sorry the pictures are so random, that's all he's sent me! They've had a bit of bad luck with the weather, and have been stuck in the town of Zermatt. They can only get to the glacier by helicopter, so when there is any fog or snow they can't go. He was pretty confident that today he will be getting into the actual fieldwork. Hopefully I'll have some breathtaking views of the Matterhorn for you soon!

Beast to Beauty

When we moved to Provo in August, we weren't sure how long we would be staying. Winter was on its way, and we only had a week or two to find a place to live. So we didn't so much mind that the view outside our window consisted of this:

And this:

These pictures don't really do it justice...Someone had thought it would be a great idea to plant grape vines and raspberries in one big patch of yard and then just leave them like that for several decades. Seriously, they had taken over EVERYTHING. There were vines reaching from one end of the backyard, wrapped all around the fence, looped up and over the neighbor's tree, back down to the fence, and all along the side yard. They were probably 100 feet long. See that tree in the far right corner above? (Oh wait, you can't even see it, it's so covered!) It was suffocating, and leaning heavily to one side because the vines were all wrapped around it and up in it's leaves.

So, for those of you who aren't aware, Landon has accepted BYU's offer and will be studying for his Master's degree here in Provo under Dr. Summer Rupper. That means that we will be in Utah for about 2 more years. And since we aren't huge fans of moving our stuff around more than necessary, we'll probably be in the same apartment for awhile at least. With that knowledge, we knew we couldn't live with our yard the way it was. We called our land lady, and not only did she approve, she offered to discount our rent for cleaning up the mess.

So we began. We started by taming the grapes. We clipped and pulled, heaved and hoed, raked and dug...soon we had several large bags full of trash, we had unearthed an ancient lawn mower (we knows how long THAT had been there), we had cleared away a massive pile of rotting wood (which, by the way, was full of mutant slugs and unnaturally large centipedes), and we realized something. We weren't standing on dirt, as we had thought. We yanked out the hose and started spraying, and guess what we found?

Oh yeah. There's a patio under there! Who knew? We were beyond ecstatic.

Too bad our job was far from over. We still had a lot of crap to clear out from the part of the yard that was actual dirt.

(Exit Crap Pile)

30 hours of work later brought us to this point:

See how the killer vines are gone? This is me with a muscle-powered "roto-tiller" that we borrowed from our home teacher. Oh and no, I haven't gained 100 pounds, I am just wearing Landon's coat.

So, a few rounds with the shovel and the spiky twisty tool and we came up with this:

Eureka! It's a garden! A huge garden actually, it's a little daunting. I'm not sure if anything will grow in it, but we'll do our best!

Before we could plant anything though, we had a bit of a dilemma. We live in a basement apartment, underneath an adorable family. With 6 kids. Three of whom are still too young to go to school. Um. Yeah. They are great, fun kids, but they aren't necessarily careful around small, fragile, helpless little plants. And they think the patio's pretty cool, too. So...we had to take a bit of drastic action. Remember the rotting wood pile? Well, it turns out it came in pretty handy! When I got home from work one day, Landon had come up with this:

Man, my husband is handy! Isn't it cute? It's like our own little Secret Garden! I'm loving it! We have now planted peas, radishes, and spinach. Everything has to wait for the weather to warm up just a bit more. Possibly next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for us that something grows! I don't have the best track record with plants...

PS: Thank you so much for all of the nice comments, phone calls, notes of Facebook, etc. in response to our last post. We are so grateful to be safe and to have amazing family and friends that we can always turn to in a crisis.

Never what you think it's going to be.

I don't really know how to write this post. But it needs to be written. So I'll just tell you exactly what happened.

Saturday was a busy day for us. Landon is leaving for Switzerland tomorrow, so we spent the morning working on getting him ready. I had to go in to work from 11:00-3:00, then we picked up our niece for a couple of hours, worked on laundry, and finally took a trip to the BYU bookstore for some new toys (more on that later). By the time we got done with everything, it was 7:00. My mom came to dinner Sunday (Happy Mother's Day!), and we knew that with her coming over, we had to go to the store. Landon requested lasagna as his "farewell meal," and we didn't have much in the way of respectable food in the house. So we packed ourselves up and went to Smith's.

We spent about an hour there, carefully choosing the groceries we needed. We found some awesome stuff: corn on the cob (my mom's favorite) was on sale, we stocked up on produce and a big bag of cheese to divide for the freezer; we picked up two boxes of baking soda so we'd have one for food storage, and we filled up our cart with the makings of a really excellent salad. We had just pulled up to the check out line and were still debating whether or not I should run and grab us some lunch meat, or if we could make do with peanut butter until I get paid again.

As we were talking, I noticed a bit of a commotion in the corner. Something just wasn't right. I turned my head to see what was happening and saw a small group of uniformed men obviously scuffling with someone in the middle of the group. I turned back to tell Landon, and heard a very loud voice bore into my brain:

"Put the gun down, NOW!"

While this was still registering in my head, a woman in a Smith's uniform stepped out and started yelling, "Get down, everybody down!" I was panicked, I froze. I was still processing all of this information. Luckily  Landon was right next to me, grabbed my hand, and started running.

And then we heard a gunshot behind us. Then another, and another.

We kept running as fast as we could. Landon stayed calm and made a beeline for the stock room. There we ran into a young employee (probably 17 or so), his friend, and an older couple who had started running right behind us. All the while the shots kept firing in rapid succession. We felt like the shots were aimed right at us, like they were getting closer. We swore we heard footfalls behind us at every turn. The employee led us through a maze of boxes and pallets to a loading dock area. The dock door was closed, and the smaller exit next to the dock had a padlock on it. We had reached a dead end.

Just as we reached the door, a female voice came over the PA system, saying, "Everyone get on the floor and stay there." We all dropped behind a large stack of pallets that were in front of the door. It was a very confined space. The Smith's employee was cursing under his breath, saying what the rest of us were thinking (and honestly, if there's ever a time to use those words, this was IT). His friend was silent, white-faced. I was holding onto Landon with one hand, still clutching my shopping list in the other. I started to cry a little, and was shaking. Strange thoughts ran through my head, trying to count shots to tell if the gunman was out of bullets - because I am my father's daughter, panicking for a moment when I realized I'd left my cellphone (the police were already there, a cell phone was entirely unnecessary at that point), and having flashbacks to the terrorist drill we'd been through in high school. And I just kept telling Landon over and over that I loved him. Landon was praying, and holding me down and close to him, protecting me. The gentleman behind us was also praying quietly.

After what seemed like an eternity (although I'm sure it was less than a minute), the employee began squirming around in the confined space, fishing for the keys in his pocket. He handed them to the other kid and asked him to try each key in case it fit the padlock, not sounding very hopeful. The first key he tried fit, and the door sprung open. The first two guys (Smith's employee and friend) bolted out of the door very fast. The woman behind me warned, "I think we ought to go slowly in case the police are out there." Taking her advice, we eased our way out of the door with our hands held in the open.

 (This was after I got my phone back, so most of the emergency vehicles are gone, but you can still see the police tape)

What met our eyes was a scene of slight panic, people running away, at least 10 police vehicles in the parking lot, two ambulances, and two fire engines.There were still more police arriving. We kept running right out of the parking lot and down the street, with the intention of going to a friend's house who lived close...they weren't home and we realized we'd be much safer by all of the police officers, so we walked back to the parking lot. We also called our good friends Jesse and Catherine, in case we needed a ride home. A police office came and briefly talked to us, asking if we'd been in the store. He also volunteered to go and search for my purse, which was left in our cart along with all of our un-bought groceries and my cell phone. My heart was still pounding.

Jesse and Catherine came and helped to calm us down and waited with us for about 45 minutes before the officer came back with my purse in hand. We were then allowed to leave. It was surreal to climb into our car and drive away like everything was completely normal. And, after all of that, we still really needed to go to the grocery store, because like it or not, there was no food in our house. We opted for the small neighborhood market about two blocks away from our house. Overpriced, but secluded. We rushed through, picking up only the bare essentials (and a quart of Dreyer's ice cream, because there was a serious need for comfort food).

We stayed up together until about 2am, just sitting close, watching a lighthearted movie, eating ice cream straight from the carton, reading to each other, checking the news, and being together. It was hard to go to sleep that night. It was hard to calm down. It was hard to realize how blessed we'd been, that we were both still alive, together, safe. But we are. We've been praying over and over again, prayers of gratitude and humility.

We have since learned that the gunman was trying to shoplift a case of beer, and was angry when the store security tried to stop him. He became violent, and they called the police. When the police arrived (which is what I saw, them running in), he pulled out a gun. The police shot the man, who died at the scene. See the news story here.

Today, we're just very grateful for all that we've been blessed with. We're heartbroken for the man's family. We are so glad the police force responded promptly, and were willing to do their jobs so that the rest of us could be here today. And we keep sending messages back and forth, just making sure that we're still here, and that we tell each other enough, "I love you."

What's More American Than Baseball?

For the title reference, click here. My whole fourth-grade year will flash before your eyes.

Tuesday night was UVU's bi-annual "Employee Appreciation Night." AKA, "To make you forget how underpaid you are, we're offering you 5 free tickets to the UVU vs. BYU baseball game, complete with free hot dogs and a UVU window sticker, just in case there was any question of your loyalty (which, you know, there is, since Landon goes to BYU)" night. Free tickets to anything are hard for me to pass up, but a baseball game especially is something I've been wanting to do for awhile. And the fact that they were playing BYU made it all too ironic. So we invited Jesse and Catherine and Landon's brother Dallin to come along for the ride.

Initially, there was some confusion about who we should cheer for. After all, UVU is my employer. But Landon does go to BYU. What to do? So we compromised:

Jesse spent most of the game ecstatic about being at a baseball game, and explaining the rules in depth to the rest of us.

Dallin and Landon were cheering for BYU, loudly, as we sat in the UVU section. Oh so fun.

And what's the point of a baseball game without hot dogs? No, really.

By the fifth inning, we were human Popsicles. Apparently spring hasn't QUITE sprung here in Provo. So we sampled some of the best concession-stand hot cocoa I have ever had.

We stayed till the very end, with the die-hard fans. It was actually a really good game! UVU came roaring out of the starting gate and was completely out-playing the Cougars. In the 6th, BYU came back and tied it up. It was really fun to cheer for both teams and feel totally legit.

In the end, BYU won. Which was ok by us. Go Cougars!

Thanks to Dallin for being a good sport, and Jesse and Catherine for keeping us entertained.We had a blast! We might be baseball fans. Might. In July maybe.