Married

I am married and as a married person am sick of having to do things on my own, so I am making Heather do it all now (including maintaining a blog, I am only kidding about the whole me not doing anything anymore attitude). Here is our new blog address. Don't expect anything more on this, but feel free to read old stories/posts.

http://roastandheather.blogspot.com/

What I've been up to lately

Some of you have pressured me and bothered me into posting so I guess its about time I did so. You all already know about going to Disneyland if not see some of my friends blogs. For some reason I lost my voice for a week afterward and lost it while there. In all it was a great fun trip.

I had like two tests in my classes lately and that kept me busy as well.

Also I don’t know think many of you have heard, but a couple of weeks ago I went in for a physical examination to see if I was fit for marriage I suppose. Well there we discussed getting an echocardiogram as I had an irregular heart flap rhythm as a child and was suppose to follow up on in every 10 years. I waited a while to get one as to save some money and see about my potential employers insurance policy. Well I found out that it’d be just as much with Deloitte’s insurance as it would be with mine, so went ahead and received one last Friday. Basically it is just an ultrasound on your heart. Here’s the best picture I could find:

Well they said it wouldn’t be until Monday that I got the results seeing if anything was wrong with my heart, so I got a call yesterday while at work and had to go meet with the doctor immediately over at the hospital. This was a little worrisome, but went over to the hospital anyway.

When I finally got there I had to wait briefly until the doctor was able to go over the results with me. Basically he told me I have a heart disease called noncompaction cardiomyopathy. It basically means that part of my heart didn’t grow from birth, and that I have (not really a surprise) susceptibility to fatigue and breathlessness and shouldn’t do extreme physical exercise. It also means I am more susceptible to dying all of sudden. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Anyway I’m fine, a little worried, but will hopefully be o.k. I wish I could put up a picture of my heard since we are all about posting creepy things on our blogs, but don’t have a scanner unfortunately.

DISNEYLAND!!!!

Yesterday I went to Disneyland with the three day weekend starting it a little early....


NOT! The funny thing though was that about a couple of weeks ago I was all set to go to Disneyland and then Heather remembered a concert she had yesterday.

So that was fine, no big deal, I had to take a test anyway, and decided to procrastinate it instead of taking it early to get to Disneyland.

What makes it even funnier/ironic is when I got home I find out my roommates have all gone out of town (not to Disneyland luckily). So I was home alone as Heather was playing at her concert.

What makes it even more funnier/ironic is that my sister went out of town to Vegas.

Even funnier/ironic is my friends who are married also went out of town to Disneyland/to visit a friend in California.

I thought all this would be o.k. as I figured we do the annual man trip on President's Day, but my buddy Micah who I did it with last year has to work, and Brandon lives in California, so that wasn't going to happen.

I couldn't find a place to go out of town too, so I am going to Bountiful today! Yey!?

Hopefully Disney will happen the last weekend of the month...got that Heather, Wes, Lori, Amy, and Ryan!?! You too Michelle, but I bet you can't be there unfortunately.

If not I guess there's always late March, and Disney World is shaping up for August!

Favorite Parts/Quotes from the Weekend

Well I haven't posted for a while, but figured I can give some insight into the big engagement over the weekend. Sorry no pictures though.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

"I'm afraid it will $#^#@ off my $#(%*$"

-This is mostly a reminder to myself of the real quote, but I am sworn to secrecy about what it is about and who its by.


HEATHER: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME"
ME: something like "No I'm not, just say Yes"

-Heather in seeing me proposing as she had NO idea it was all set up for the engagement and had no idea I had got the ring.

AMY: "Can we forget about the caves already!"

-Ryan and I really wanted to go find some caves he remembered from his dating years, but we never did. I suppose he's gone and found them by now....hopefully.

SMITTY (Random Balloon Man): something like "It's amazing fitting 5 pounds of S#$*(#$ in a 4 pound bag"

-we had to put the balloon bag into a small bag. This guy was wearing some jacket with a bunch of multi-colored balloons on it and seemed to be the only person on the 4 person balloon crew who didn't care we got engaged. He was pretty cool.

Those are all the quotes I can think of, but it was great to surprise Heather.

Here's the story behind the story:

The week of New Year's Day Heather and I went ring shopping at a place Heather's dad set us up with that would give us a good deal (I am guessing they did). They told us the ring would be ready a week from that Tuesday and that we could come pick it up whenever. We said we would be back up later in the month (this week) to pick it up as we aren't usually in Salt Lake City. I secretly grabbed a business card while Heather was looking at the different rings so I could have the address.

On Friday January 11 I went back to AAA and got some car insurance....I mean the ring. As I was just about home I got a call from Heather (we were going out that night) saying she was coming over. I was still driving through Provo and figured she would figure out something was up so I told her I was about to lay down for a nap and to come by later. She believed me and I wasn't completely lying as I did want a nap (although I never fell asleep).

I've been pretty paranoid that Heather would find out ever since January 11 and my paranoia started that day. As I pulled into the garage I could of sworn I saw her car parked outside and figured she was just waiting in her car outside until the time I told her to come over. I tried to see if anyone was in the car and couldn't tell from inside my apartment. Then a few seconds later the car was gone, so I don't know what that was all about. I guess it wasn't Heather's car though because this car had its license plate kinda dented, Heather's doesn't.

I've been telling Heather since we picked out the ring that we'd go pick it up together this coming Friday (when we went up for Heather's mom's birthday). I've also been telling her that I'd propose on Valentine's day (although Heather did say I said something to her around Christmas time about Santa not bringing a ring, but maybe Martin Luther King Jr.) so I should have just believed that Heather wouldn't have a clue, but different. People whispering in other rooms, people asking if I was engaged, etc. all made me paranoid that Heather knew I was planning on proposing.

I brought up that first night that I picked up the ring we should go to Vegas for the 3-day weekend coming up thinking it'd be good to do the hot air balloon thing there because of better weather (my original idea entailed UT somehow, but all the places are so far away and didn't want to stay at a hotel the night before. I thought I had found one company up in Logan (and even stole Heather's brother-in-law's phone number that lives there) but could never find it again. Anyway, Vegas looked better.

So I coordinated with the Fitzgibbons and they found a good company. I tried e-mailing some Vegas companies but all of them wanted a deposit and if they couldn't go up that day (hot air ballooning I guess you have to have perfect weather) they'd give you a rain check for the next year. Well I had like one to two days I could do it. I wanted to do it on Sunday as I figured what Mormon would go on Sunday (this one would apparently...meaning me). You also would have to buy out all the spots to go up if you wanted a private flight (I basically did).

So Ryan found a good company and I coordinated with them and told them it was a surprise so he (Ron from the company) gave me a good idea of saying he was a buddy who needed help. So I let Ryan run with it (and you can see all that in Heather's blog).

A couple of nights before the trip I left Heather's house because I needed air from wedding planning when we weren't even engaged. Well that night I took the opportunity to take out the cash needed to pay the balloon company.

So we drove to Vegas. The code word from Amy was suppose to be "Fosters is hecka good", but instead she said "I want ice cream" which I had to make fun of, of course and didn't understand what she meant (while talking over the phone on the way down). So I called them back and checked while Heather was in some random bathroom from Provo to Vegas.

Anyway, we got to Vegas, went to a buffet and while there finalized plans with Ryan and Amy while Heather went to go get desseret from the dessert buffet.

And then the next day came and I proposed as said in Heather's blog.

Ron, the balloon guy, did say all the set up was for show and did slip me a card I could right on that would go with the flower they gave to Heather. I gave that card to Ryan who gave it to Amy however.

Anyway, that's how it all happened.

Other highlights:

-Random kids who came up to see the balloon come down getting suckered into helping with an easy landing.

-Smitty eating a piece of the toast cake before we had even got to eat a piece.

-Heather not having any clue any of this was happening and not thinking this was the real proposal.

-Messing up the words that we were repeating from "The Balloonist Prayer"

-skipping most of church to take a nap as I had not slept well the night previously or all week.

-Heather saying yes and getting married in just a few months.

New York Adventures Part 3 of 3. The Story Concludes

Well I've been busy with the semester rounding up, Christmas letters, and now finals coming up next week and that's why I haven't posted for a while. Actually I've been so busy I didn't even realize I sent my tax final project to the wrong e-mail address last night and have now re-sent it late (hopefully I won't be penalized, and hopefully to the right e-mail address!) I figured I should probably finish this story.

So I last left you as I retired home for the evening. Well I'll start off this time of some pictures I took of my room and the view from my room.




There ya go.

The next day I headed out early to get to the building my office visit would take place at. I knew where it was as I had wandered a lot the night before, had got lost, and had found the Ernst and Young building where my interview was to take place. I think I even timed how long it would take to walk there.

So I checked out early and decided to get some breakfast with my credit card or the gift card I had won (from a previous office visit) for Starbucks (actually the company I was interviewing with was going to reimburse so I probably would have just used my credit card). Well the line was long so I waited a little bit, and decided against waiting longer as I figured that I should get to my office visit a little early.

Here are some street pictures of New York City during the day. There is also a picture of an R2-D2 mailbox. There is also a picture of the Ernst and Young building where I had my interview.



I got there, waited, saw some I knew from BYU who was also interviewing, talked to him, told him about my cash situation (and asked to borrow cash if needed), and had my office visit. The office visit was good (I was eventually offered a job I didn't take) and ended quickly (after 2 interviews and lunch). So once I was done, the other BYU guy wasn't done so I decided to wait outside the building like a stalker for him to come out. Well I did so, but we decided to just share a cab and try to get an earlier flight home out of JFK (our flight was suppose to be at like 7 getting in at 11 I think?). He'd pay for it and get reimbursed (despite STILL not being reimbursed by the company to this day for my other expenses).

So we took a cab, but didn't get there early enough so we sat at the airport forever! Well I got some food when we got there (a snack really) counting that as breakfast figuring I'd get more on the plane or before we left. Well we finally all board the plane and the plane took off. As I was sitting there however I heard a loud noise above the cabin and felt the plane starting to turn a little later on. I then felt my ears pop a billion times and then heard the captain get on saying something to the extent of "Well we're having some problems so we are heading back to JFK."

So we land back in JFK and did not die, despite me thinking we would so. (This was my first time flying Delta by the way...hopefully my last). We stayed on the runway forever (the captain told us to not worry about the firetrucks and ambulances...that that was just standard procedure). So while sitting there we find out that the door had not closed properly thus causing the cabin not to de-pressurize properly. So they brought someone to look at. Well apparently the same thing had just happened a couple of weeks before so they got us all off the plane! So we get off the plane and have no idea when were going to be able to leave. 3 hours later they bring us some food (all the places had closed after we waited a half hour in line to take off, and the while we were in the air for about a half hour) and to catch another flight back to Salt Lake. Here are some pictures of us sitting around the airport FOREVER and the lame attempt at food they brought us (I was so hungry). The one guy with white hair was Scottish though (reminded me of my friend Andrew in 50 or so years) so that was cool:





Anyway, we finally got off again and got back into Salt Lake City at like 3 a.m. It was another hour to get luggage, get to the BYU guys car (I asked him for a ride home) and got home at 4 a.m. I skipped class that Tuesday morning.

I should have probably complained, got free tickets, something... but nope I decided to blog about it instead and got to busy to even do that. Anyway, I am done with New York for a while and my debit card did come in the mail the next day by the way.

There I finally posted. Now give me to at least the New Year before I have to do so again! Maybe I'll post again then...maybe not until February. J/k. Just keep checking back and giving good comments and I may be motivated to post sooner. And if anyone knows how to get the actual counter I put up a while back to work (show the number that is) please let me know!

Christmas Addresses

I know I know...I need to tell the rest of my New York Adventures story, but I just wanted to introduce this page to anyone from facebook that might have found my blog through a recent group I created asking for people's addresses so I can send a Christmas letter/card. If you weren't invited to this group on facebook I most likely have your address already, don't know you well enough, or just forgot to ask you for your address. Or maybe you aren't on facebook. Anyway, I hope to post the rest of the story soon. I am just being lazy. For those of you just first seeing this blog....enjoy!

New York Adventures Part 2 of 3

Well I waited about a week to post part 2, but here it is.

This is the continuing adventures of ROAST in New York City. If you haven’t already read part 1 I would suggest doing so.

After arriving and checking into my hotel in Times Square I decided it was time to go find where they sell the discounted tickets to Broadway shows. I had looked up what was playing before getting to New York on a Sunday night (I was sort of on vacation so I can break the Sabbath right? Yeah probably not…but I did anyway!) and had an hour or so before any show would start so needed to find this TKTS (or whatever it is called) booth where they sold these tickets. So I walked FOREVER down Broadway (Or Times Square Avenue I can’t remember which…I think they are parallel so I probably jumped back and forth looking for it).

Here are some pictures I took while looking:

That picture of me I actually took myself, but I am not even looking in the camera which is kind of funny. Anyway, after walking far too south I called my fake-sister Natalie and asked her to Google it for me. She did so and told me where I needed to be/go. So I went (man how did I walk right past the building it was next to and not see it?) and looked at the discounts.

Well they were all about 50% off, but that’s all the information I could really get. I was undecided between “Spamalot” and “Mary Poppins”. I asked the guy that was there answering questions which one I should go see and he said that “Mary Poppins” probably didn’t have as great of a chance of touring as “Spamalot” did (which is actually already touring). So I decided to go see that. I also asked about how much tickets were (before asking about the specific shows) and he said about $60-80 for the Broadway ones, and $30-60 for those that were off-Broadway. That was fine I thought. I had a credit card right? WRONG! Just kidding I did. I was wrong in my thought however that you could purchase discount tickets at this booth using a credit card. CASH ONLY! Luckily I still had around $60 or so (probably less) of cash after paying for my cab.

Anyway, I asked for a ticket and was told it was $60.39 (or something like that) and gave the person $61. Well they gave me back $20 immediately…so….either they didn’t know how to count or I didn’t hear them right. Seeing as I had already had a hard time figuring out the New York economy I decided it was the latter. Either way I was down another $40 or so in cash. The ticket also said $80 on it, so I think that’s where the 50% off came into play. So I think I had about $20 or so left. Well the play started at 6:30 p.m. and it was just about 6 p.m. so I decided I’d head over to the New Amsterdam theatre where it was playing. Enjoy these fine pictures:

Before enjoying Mary Poppins (oh by the way I forgot to mention I thought I was suppose to meet another Accounting student to see something, but she was going to watch the CES devotional (yes…I skipped the devotional making me even more of a sinner) so I went by myself) I decided to eat something as I hadn’t eaten all day (yes….I did remember it was Fast Sunday!....one point for me, 2 against me so far). So I had my first experience with New York City street food. You can actually see the booth I went to to get the food in one of the picture above (blue and white umbrella). I got a chicken shish kabob (which they put in a bun which I thought was odd) and I downed it in less then 2 minutes (hey the musical was going to start soon!). It only cost me $4 cash. I only got this food as I figured I would eat again real soon (as I was suppose to meet the accounting student for dinner at some place fancy later (wasn’t ever decided where)…which I will just say now instead of later that I was flamed as she never answered her phone).

Anyway, “Mary Poppins” was fantastic. I highly recommend it. My seat was in the Mezzanine about 7 rows back. I am a big musical fan and have seen at least 6 already this year (3 in one week!). There was only one song that I didn’t like too much in “Mary Poppins”, but it was still o.k.

After the musical I couldn’t get a hold of the other accounting student as already mentioned. Went to the hotel for a little bit (talked to Heather for like the 2^nd and 3^rd time for the night) and decided to go find something to eat. So after calling my parents (while I looked at souvenirs (I didn’t find anything I was 100% satisfied with)) I went to this pizza place (famous?) and got better pictures of the David Letterman show theatre (I also threw in a picture of what I ate at the pizza place):

Well the pizza was pretty good (although I was confused when I bought it as the slice of pizza next to it looked uncooked (which it was uncooked…they threw it in the oven while there)) and decided I’d go explore more of the city.

Here are the pictures of me going to Central Park and Columbus square. Rather they are pictures of Central Park and Columbus square:

I went part way into the park but decided it was late and didn’t want to get mugged/stabbed/shot/beaten up/killed in general so left quickly.

Well it was about 11 p.m. or so decided I would go to my hotel room and go to sleep. Before I did I took some pictures of Time Square from my room. Oh I also took this picture of a UFO:

On my way back to the hotel (I think it was then at least I can’t remember anymore that or after getting pizza) I snuck into an ATM room at Chase Manhattan Bank. I decided I seriously needed some cash especially if I wanted to get back to the airport. Well I swiped my card, put in for $60, said “Yes” to a $1.50 transaction fee, and got a receipt. Yep…just a receipt. It basically said “Your card is expired…you idiot you shouldn’t have spent so much cash (by the way I WAS able to use Credit Card on the pizza…I think it was around $7).” I looked and sure enough my debit card was expired. I started to panic, called home (didn’t get any sympathy or cash) and decided I would just borrow cash from another recruit the next day or try to get lucky and get a cab that took credit card.

Well I am about posted out for now so I will have to post yet another part (part 3 of 3) soon. You’ll be able to hear the exciting conclusion of what happened with my money troubles and maybe see some more pictures (not that there isn't enough here!)...You may now comment.

New York Adventures Part 1 of 3

As some of you might now (you should probably know by now, I’ve mentioned it at least a billion times in the blog by now) I’ve been doing office visits for an internship this coming winter semester. Recently I was able to go to New York City, New York for the first time on one of these office visits. This is Part 1 of a 3 part series about my adventures in New York. It is a photo journal if you will.

So my adventures began by landing in La Guardia airport after a long flight at about 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday. The first order of business was to get a cab to the hotel I was staying. Here is part of the line I had to wait in to get that cab.

Anyway, this was my first experience ever getting a cab on my own. I am glad you can share in it with me. Luckily I never actually had to hail a cab while in New York, there was always someone else to do it for me. In this case they had a long line at the airport and the guy just directed the cabbies where to park.

None of these pictures came out to well, but the first of the map of New York that was in the cab, the rest various pictures of New York City, and the last is a picture of the David Letterman studio (although in this picture you can’t see it too well). While driving through New York I saw a whole bunch of people and a bunch of people wearing silver capes (I had only seen one person wearing one at first and I thought he was odd, but then a whole bunch as I sat in the cab) . These silver things peoples were wearing looked like Capri Sun containers stapled together and wrapped around these people. It was weird, but I thought “Hey maybe that’s the fashion.”

Anyway, I arrived at my hotel which was the Crown Plaza Royal in Times Square. I think these places are normally somewhere around $500 a night. I got to stay for free luckily as I was going to be interviewing with Ernst and Young the next day.

As I was getting out of the cab I needed to pay the cabbie. Well I tried talking to my cabbie on the way to the hotel, but he was very hard to understand. So when I was getting out he was even harder to understand. So I get the receipt and it’s for $25.70, and the cab I think is telling me that it is this much, but I couldn’t understand him, so I just give him $29 and figure that’s good for tip and what not. Well he says something that I make out to be $4 for a toll (because we went through a toll bridge). So he says something like “1 more dollar.” So I give him a dollar or two. I then ask “Does that include tip?” because I had no idea what the guy was saying or how much I had already paid him, he says something like “No, that’s o.k.” but I go ahead and give the guy an extra $2 more dollars (probably not the best tip, but I had no idea how much I had already paid him…even though I think I just told you). Well I get out and an older couple are getting in, and boy did I feel stupid that I had no idea how much cash I had given that cabbie, and felt bad for the couple for having to wait for so long.

I went into the hotel and you had to ride an escalator up to the lobby. Well I rode it up and I didn’t see any check in, and the escalator kept going so I kept going too. I then see a bunch of people going into conference rooms, and drinking champagne, and a sign that says something like “New York Marathon.” I also see some more of those Capri sun cape things with “New York Marathon” on it, so that mystery was solved (well at least I think it is solved because I figured the New York Marathon was that day).

Anyway, I realize I’ve gone too far up on this escalator and decide to go back down one floor. I finally find the check-in hidden around a corner after wandering around looking for long enough. So I go ahead and check into my room…room 4309. I think I will post part 2 another day as this already is a lot to read for one day and you probably think these stories are somewhat boring.

Wii are sad...

Well I haven't posted for a while I think it's because I've decided that I won't post unless my girlfriend posts and since I wrote her last post (before the most recent one you can find by clicking "Heather" on the right hand side of this page) I decided I didn't have to blog for a while...well she blogged, so now I feel like I have to blog until she blogs again. It will be a never ending cycle (or so I hope).

Anyway, as some of you may know I've unfortunately had to leave Heather for a lot of weekends in a row. Well other then that other bad things have happened to me. I've been losing things I guess you can say.

For instance last weekend I lost my sunglasses, my planner, and my chapstick...

Anyway, so that sucked....but most likely it was my fault I lost these things.

The good news of last weekend was I was actually offered an internship for the winter semester so that was good and these things are easily replaceable (I later found another thing of ChapStick that I had lost before I had lost the latest ChapStick). It may cost upward to $5-$10 to replace those things. Probably not that much if I were able to get another free BYU planner, and a $0.99 pair of sunglasses (that's probably how much the other ones were worth anyway.

Anyway, this weekend I actually stayed the weekend after my office visit in Dallas to see my family (despite siblings who apparently didn't want to see me as they went on dates) and to go to another office visit (in New York) on Monday (I still haven't heard back from the office visit yesterday).

Well while I was watching a movie (Dan in Real Life....very good movie by the way) at the theater this morning I got like 3 phone calls in a row. Well I never get one phone call in a day little own 3 in a row. Well I don't like leaving movies and for the most part I was enjoying the movie, this however seemed suspicious and I immediately thought something was wrong (I forgot to mention this to you Heather but I thought something had gone horribly wrong with you and that was the reason why I was receiving all the phone calls). Needless to say I was worried.

I then get a text.

The text basically confirms (well not confirms...Heather was alright playing her recital as I thought she may be and as you can read about in her blog) my worries and I come to find out through a series of texts and a failed attempt at a phone call (Sorry Jason I had bad service in that hallway leading into the theater) that my relatively new Nintendo Wii (my birthday present to myself) was stolen.

Anyway, after the movie I was finally able to call my friend and found out the details (basically the details are the roommate went to bed at around 2:00 to 2:30 a.m....he didn't lock the door because people were coming in and out all night...a roommates friend came in at around 3:30 a.m. and noticed the lamp was on, but didn't think anything of it. My roommate wakes up in the morning, goes out into the living room and sees that my wii (with controllers and nunchucks and my Metroid Prime 3 game in it), his cell phone, and his ps2 are missing. What they (or he/she) didn't steal were another roomies vcr/dvd combo, a dvd player, a computer and monitor, and a bunch of dvds, wii games, books, and PEZ dispensers.

We have no idea who did it. I then proceeded to give the police officer (who my roommates had contacted about this) my name and told him no one had borrowed my wii and my roommate found serial numbers and what not we needed to give the officer to hopefully track it down.

I HIGHLY doubt anything will come of it. Although I hope you all can have faith for me. I did check to see that they couldn't get my Credit Card number from the wii (as I had bought something from the virtual console) (they can't apparently) or buy any other virtual games with the number (although I think I did still have 200 points left).

Anyway I am taking a collection plate for purchase of replacements of the lost things if anyone wants to donate! I doubt I will get Metroid 3 again as I don't really have the patience to play back up to the point I was at to beat the game.

I hope I don't lose anything more this next weekend when I go out of town for the last time on office visits.

If you want to donate you know where to find me.





THERE I FINALLY BLOGGED HEATHER AND AMY AND WHOEVER ELSE WAS WAITING! :-)