Mawiage. Mawiage is what bwings us togethah today.

My lovely bride and I were sealed in the Redlands, California temple 8 January 2011 at 11 am.

The ceremony was great. One of the best things about it was my whole family was in the temple together for the first time since our family's sealing almost 20 years ago.

Our reception was absolutely beautiful. We had so many people who helped us and we are so grateful for them.

We drove to California for the sealing and spent Christmas with my bride's side of our new family. We decided to take our time getting back and take our honeymoon. We spend three days in Vegas including a gondola ride, shopping, a tour of the Bodies exhibit and the Titanic exhibit and a sinful tour of the "Freemont Experience." We went on to Albuquerque (I finally figured out how to spell Albuquerque; thanks Lissa!) and then attended the Dallas Texas temple and spent the night there. We also had lunch with an old mission friend of mine.

We are back in Hammond and virtually unpacked.

Today, I have to brag. We went to Kirklands to look for some wedding stuff and we checked on an ottoman we saw there a few weeks ago. It was on sale and we thought it would be on further sale. It wasn't on sale but we noticed it was kinda dirty and a little scratched so we asked the sales associate if we could get a discount. It was originally $499 and on discount for $179. The sales associate said we could get 25% off for some sale. So we basically stole it! It is awesome.

Offering Gratitude

On the eve of our National holiday, I thought it appropriate to offer my thanks for, in no particular order:

1. My knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
2. The Book of Mormon
3. The Program
4. My health
5. My wonderful and supportive parents
6. My endearing fiance'
7. Our new-to-be landlord
8. Our new-to-be home
9. Our soon-to-be temple sealing
10. My awesome sister
11. My love of food
12. Exercise
13. A job or two
14. School
15. A cute little town to live in
16. The opportunity to walk/ride my bike to school

The list will continue...

Be free

Just a funny lil story.

Ginny and I were riding down Airport Rd. in Hammond and saw a bus stopping ahead to allow some neighborhood children to exit and return home to their family. We stopped and waited. As the bus leaves, we both look over at the young kids to only see one of the kids about 10 feet from the road unzip his pants and relieve himself. Yes, he was tee teeing on the side of the road. I guess he couldn't wait until he got home. We lost it! It was hilarious!

Ima need you to get off the sidewalk!

SeLU is not a bike friendly campus. How come people never learned bike etiquette? It is not okay to ride your bike on the sidewalk when there are pedestrians there. They have the right away. If you are coming up from behind a pedestrian, they still have the right away. You should probably announce yourself, "passing on left" far in advance so they know you will be coming around them (this goes the same for joggers approaching walkers). Even if you announce yourself, you should still try to go around the pedestrians because they have the right away; they have the right to be there.

Also, young lady on SeLU campus in the motorized mini 4-wheeler cart thing. I'm sorry that you have you to ride that on campus for some unapparent reason to the rest of the world. But, ou also do not have the right away on the sidewalk. As a courtesy, pedestrians will move out of the way for you to pass (more than likely because they think you are going to hit them if they don't). The least you could do is say, "thank you." I mean, we wouldn't want you to make an actual effort and say, "excuse me." This is not your campus and no one will ever really respect you unless you respect them.

Not the KS but mucus? Really!?!?

So, I finally went back to the health center and explained my symptoms to the dr. He did another urine analysis and there was no blood in my urine and the pain I was describing wasn't consistent with kidney stones. Phew! Very good news! But he told me I have mucus on my prostate. Yeah, I know. I was a bit weirded out too. Something I've learned from working in the medical field is, don't be surprised. My fiance' works with injured athletes and they surprise her all the time. Also, I've learned that just because we think something is what it is (mucus only is for our respiratory system) does not mean it can't manifest itself somewhere else. Supposedly, I have some sort of infection in my prostate causing it to inflame so I am taking an antibiotic and a decongestant...for my prostate. Isn't medicine wonderful???

Kidnaaaay Stooooones.

::Disclaimer:: This post is not for the faint of heart of unscientific minds.

For some reason, I have had some unfortunate birthdays. A few years ago, Ouizer, a friend of ours and I were involved in a semi-serious wreck the midnight of my birthday. This year, around the same time, I discovered I probably am passing a kidney stone.

About a week and a half ago, I thought I had a UTI. My mom gets them all the time so I assumed I could have a problem too. I even think I had one a long time ago. I went to the store and picked up some pain reliever. I got some relief that weekend but the pain didn't really subside so I went to the student health center on campus. The doctor told me that guys don't really get UTIs and thought I might have something wrong with my prostate. And yes, he checked my prostate in the traditional way. He gave me some pills and they started to work.

As I said before, around midnight I started developing a strong, tense and tingling/numbing feeling in my lower back, above my obliques. I was still experiencing the same symptoms from what I thought was the UTI and my doctor thought was an enflamed prostate. I'm about 98% sure what it might be. I've only had two "episodes" of the above mentioned pain but I will for sure keep you all up to date of my experiences.

My Birthday

Yesterday, I was awoken to a disturbing chorus of some rendition of what, if I was drunk, would sound like the "Happy Birthday" song. Not only was I woke up early on my birthday but the sound was so atrocious. :-) HA!

My birthday was anything but traditional. Ginny brought me some wonderful pastries from a local, The Cocoa Bean; a giant cream puff, an eclair (my favorite) and a pumpkin muffin (Ginny is a bit addicted to pumpkin...everything!). They were all delicious. I also got plenty of texts and messages from friends and families!

On to presents...Ginny got me a shirt (soon to be seen in

our engagement photos) and the best remake of the best movie ever!!! If you watch Glee, the song, "Home" sung by Kristen Chenowith is from the Wiz. I'm so very excited to see it again. It has the incomparable Diana Ross and of course, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson (when he was, uhm, a little darker.)

I also got a great bike from Ginny's family. I'm way excited about it. I've wanted one for a while. My parents actually gave me some money for a bike a few months ago but some unforeseen expenses arose that quickly took that money. I've wanted to ride my bike to school since I'm so freaking close to campus and now I can!! YAY!

I was supposed to go to Baton Rouge to hang out with my parents to attend the best Mexican buffet ever...PANCHOS! But, I have had some, uh, medical problems. I won't be going there for that. My sister has also planned a dinner with some cake tomorrow. I hope I will be all better so I can go to that.