Seeking a Peaceful Resolution Between Humans and Vampires

"MountainStar Blood Services personnel will be taking blood donations from 2-6 p.m. at the Cullen’s Culinary Cafe on the third level of the bookstore during regular hours, and will return that night dressed in vampire get-up to accept donations during the “Breaking Dawn” Book Launch Party from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m." http://byunews.byu.edu/archive08-Jul-vampire.aspx

This was a great marketing ploy by the BYU Bookstore rolled up into a nice little service project. I however saw this as more than just a plan to sell books and save lives. It gave me an idea that might finally bring a peaceful resolution to the struggle between humans and vampires.

As I was reading this article the following thought came to me: "Why don't the Cullen's hold blood drives?" This would benefit them for many reasons. 1) It would satisfy their desire for human blood without having to drink nasty animal blood. By my calculations the Cullen's kill hundreds of animals a year trying to curb their craving for human blood. All the kind bears and mountain lions will roam free once again without fear of Edward or Emmett hunting them. 2) They could convince more of the "mislead" vampires to join their coven because they would no longer have to give up human blood. With the strength of their new coven they could potentially overthrow the devious and evil Volturi. 3) It would mean a cheap birthday present from Bella to Edward (I'm sure a fresh pint every six weeks would be more than enough to satisfy him). It is the least she could do for him saving her every other page.

I decided to present my plan to Alisa. Of course she completely disagreed, and hot little debate ensued. Alisa made this point:

it's like if you'd never had Filet Mignon, you wouldn't know what you were missing, right? And if you'd only had it once or twice (a long time ago), you would have forgotten. But then someone brings some to you all of the sudden and you remember how great it was (or realize if you've never had it) and then that's all you want. More and more yummy filet mignon.

My response to her was very simple. If I had a cow that could regularly give me a piece of filet mignon without dying, then I would never kill that cow (that would be one magical cow)! I would give away my firt born's bed to the cow. It would be a never ending source of my favorite thing to eat! So of course the vampires would prefer to live by blood drives; they would choose it by their own self interest (Adam Smith's invisible hand works for vampires too).

To address a few final points you might try and make. 1) Humans would totally be for it because who wouldn't want to give their blood rather than dying? 2) Yes there are vampires like James that kill for fun. That is when we give Batman a call, and did you forget the Cullen's will be the new heads of the vampire world? 3) Another way to control all the energy that vampires spent on hunting is to start a VBL (Vampire Baseball League).

Llama Fest!

Every year, in Spanish Fork at the Hare Krishna Hindu temple, they have a Llama fest (I have yet to discover why they combine a Hindu temple with a Peruvian animal festival - can anyone enlighten me?). We (Nate, Trav, Rachel, Natalya, Damien, Brett, a friend of Rachel's and me) decided to go, since none of us had ever been and we were all a little curious what the hulabaloo was all about.

And I brought my camera :D

This is the Hare Krishna Temple. Pretty huh?

Brett, Nate, me, Travis, Rachel, Natalya and Damien
Inside the temple
Also inside the temple. We decided it would be easy to be a vocalist in this religion, as all we ever heard them sing was "Hare Krishna" over and over.
This was the 2nd picture I took of Nate next to the Llama - he wasn't smiling in the first one. :)
Nate pretended that he wasn't having much fun, but he didn't even know I took this picture. :D h

This Llama, according to Nate, looks like his mom (just the hair) - sorry Kippy - he insisted and thought it was just so funny....

One more with Nate and a Llama - he probably shouldn't have touched it since his hands smelled like Llama for the rest of the day. Yuck!

There was also dancing going on in a Pavilion down the hill - we only watched for a few minutes and I wish we could have watched more, but by that time, everyone was ready to GO!

Breaking Dawn

I just went to the library and put my name on the waiting list for Breaking Dawn.

I'm number 75.

Good Luck - this is RANDOM


So, I have these great pictures to upload from this really fun thing we did last weekend, but I keep forgetting to get the pictures off the camera. Nate also has some pictures he needs to post, but we're slackers and I feel bad not posting.

SO

Last Friday Nate, Trav, Damien and Brett went to The Dark Knight (Natalya and Rachel didn't want to see it and I didn't want to spend so much on a movie I only sort of wanted to see). So we girls had a "girl's night in." Aside from nights spent with AJ when Josh was working, this was probably the most girly night I've had. :) All three of us have curly hair so we did this cool hair treatment, painted our toenails, made cookies and watched The Other Boleyn Girl.










This is probably not a movie you want to watch with kids or even teenagers, but it was a very well made movie. While much of the plot centers around mistresses and what people will do to gain power, it definitely didn't portray it as a good thing and showed what can happen to a family and a country when that becomes acceptable. It was a historical movie that made me realize I knew nothing about the time period, except that Henry VIII got married like 8 times and started the Church of England so he could divorce his wife (I actually got on Wikipedia after I watched the movie to figure out who went where and when certain things happened).
This movie is very much a story about a family, though. As a person who is very close to her family, I could relate to the emotions they were feeling as they did what they could for each other, even while sacrificing things for themselves. Anyway, it is a very enjoyable movie that really plays on your emotions. If you watch it, let me know what you think.

So that was our girl's night in. I have to say, while I love spending time with Nate and the fun things we do together, I think it is VERY important to have time apart - time to do your own things or just be with other girls/guys. In my opinion, it's not good to spend all of your time just with your spouse (and that could just be my personality - I need more space than lots of people I know) - you each need to have your own interests. It makes the time you spend together that much better because you don't feel like it's forced. I think we felt that way when we were first married - that we always needed to be together, but we've learned that it's better to have some time apart.

Anyway, this was the MOST random post of my life. I hope you enjoyed it (and kept up - I'm not sure I did....).

Is it already the middle of July?!?!

I was planning on posting these pictures (yes, I actually took pictures...) right after the 4th, but kept forgetting to take the pictures off my camera and I didn't take the time to update my blog. So I'm finally doing so.

1. Rock climbing:

Nate and Jord hooking up the top rope.

Damien climbing with Nate belaying and Jord & Trav getting read to climb.

This picture was taken for what is BEHIND Paige and Natalya...Yikes...I wish I had gotten his hair. It was longer (and greasier) than most girls I know.

Here we are, blocking the ONLY entrance to Rock Canyon park. We were lazy and it was the only place there was shade. I probably should feel bad, but it was HOT!

My attempt at good photography.

4th of July:

We went to a picnic with Grandma Dewey's sister and her family in American Fork Canyon. Here's a picture of Rachel, Travis, Paige, grandma, Kippy, Kim, great-granma, Don (great-grandma's husband), Kurt (Kippy's cousin) and one of Kurt's daughters.
Aren't we cute? If you look closer to the picture, Paige and Nate have INSANELY blue eyes. Wow. Doesn't Kim look thrilled? What can you say, she's 17 :D All we're missing is grandma Dewey and it's a 4 generation picture!

Rachel showing off her ring to grandma.

Waiting to watch the fireworks (Miley Cyrus was at Stadium of Fire - blah - though I do like that one song on the radio...). And yes, we sat RIGHT in front of a police car. We were there first! :)

So there you go! More to come shortly.....

I want comments!



Nate and I were talking about something that I want to hear other people's opinions:

Nate works with a guy who was talking about what he wants to do when he gets married, relating to the girl's ring. He said one option he thought of was just buying a ring from Wal-Mart while they're young, poor married college students. Then, in like 5 years when they have more money, he would buy a really nice ring. Nate said he didn't think the girl would go along with something like that.

I told Nate I wouldn't have minded something like that and he said I was lying! He said he didn't think there was a single girl who would be okay with something like that. I told him I thought there are plenty of girls who would be. Of course there are girls who wouldn't be okay with that, and that's fine. I don't think that's a bad thing to want a beautiful diamond right away. I LOVE my ring, but the point is if Nate had said he couldn't afford a nice one right now and would I be okay with wearing a cubic zirconia ring until he could afford a real one? I would have been fine with that. The guy would, of course, have to talk to the girl about it beforehand - make sure she was okay with that.

Nate says that's just something guys should do. If they're planning on getting married, they should be saving for a ring because it's an important token of the relationship and to get a Wal-Mart ring makes it seem like the guy doesn't care as much. Plus, he thinks almost any girl would be at least a little disappointed in not having a real diamond to show off. He said "what's the first thing a girl does after she gets engaged? She shows off her ring!" and most girls wouldn't like having to show a "fake" ring.

I actually have a friend who, when she got engaged, showed me her ring and I had no idea it wasn't a real diamond, so I think many people wouldn't know unless you told them. Plus, you could get a different ring every year if you wanted!

I may not have given Nate's side of this as well as he would want (I guess he'll just have to comment about it if he has more to say :D ) but now it's YOUR turn.

I want to hear your opinions. Neither Nate or I will be offended if you don't agree with us. I'm mostly just curious.

What could it hurt?

My friend Adam posted a link to a petition to Congress about drilling for oil here, in the US. While I realize some of you may be against drilling in ANWR, for those of you who aren't, click here.

After you've signed the petition, you'll get a couple of e-mails from them asking you to register , but you just have to unsubscribe and you'll have added your name to the list of over a million people who thing gas prices are sucking the life out of us and that we can do something about it! :)

I say again, what could it hurt to sign it?

"I've got you"

















Last night, we watched Vantage Point with Jordan, Paige and Travis. I had heard a few people say they didn't like it that much, so I wasn't expecting anything great.

I was pleasantly surprised that is was a VERY good movie. It had a bit of a "24" feel to it and I love "24" so I think that helped. I thought it had a good plot and kept you guessing the whole time (though, it seems like our guesses were often right).

Whenever I watch movies, in my mind I kind of predict what will happen. More often than not, I'm right. But I never voice my prediction and when I try to claim that I thought that would happen, no one believes me. So last night, early in the movie, I gave my prediction so I wouldn't have to say later "I knew that was going to happen!" I was SO wrong. I think I'll just keep my predictions to myself from now on.

Anyway, it's a good movie, lots of action, zero romance, a little confusing at times, but overall worth watching (Plus it has Matthew Fox - aka Jack Shepherd if you watch Lost - which makes it SO worth it :).

HOWEVER, beware of the final scene. There is a line that could potentially ruin the movie for you. SO CHEESY/CLICHE/ACTED BADLY. I think it completely ruined the movie for Trav. :)

BABY MAMA
(no, this is not a pregnancy announcement...)










This past weekend, we went to the movie Baby Mama. For those who haven't seen this, you need to. It's HILARIOUS!

While, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, its affect on my subconscious produced QUITE the dream. That night, I had a dream that I was pregnant. But the dream didn't end at pregnancy.

Oh no.

In my dream, I actually went into labor (I vividly remember the pain, even from a dream) and had the baby. Since I know you're all curious, it was a boy.

And he was beautiful.

It was SUCH a powerfully moving dream that I woke up depressed that is wasn't real. He was so amazing and I connected with him instantly. Weird how wanting a baby can do that, huh?

So, I say "Go watch Baby Mama" but I also warned you of the potential results of seeing it (which could be awkward if you're a boy).

BABY MAMA
(no, this is not a pregnancy announcement...)

This past weekend, we went to the movie Baby Mama. For those who haven't seen this, you need to. It's HILARIOUS!

While, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, its affect on my subconscious produced QUITE the dream. That night, I had a dream that I was pregnant. But the dream didn't end at pregnancy.

Oh no.
In my dream, I actually went into labor (I vividly remember the pain, even from a dream) and had the baby. Since I know you're all curious, it was a boy.

And he was beautiful.

It was SUCH a powerfully moving dream that I woke up depressed that is wasn't real. He was so amazing and I connected with him instantly. Weird how wanting a baby so much can do that, huh?

So, I say "Go watch Baby Mama" but I also warned you of the potential results of seeing it (which could be awkward if you're a boy).

Bridal Veil Falls

I promised I would post something unrelated to Twilight, but since I'm a dunce who doesn't take her camera anywhere (and even if I did, I wouldn't take pictures...), anything I post becomes sort of worthless (I have a friend who can pull off a post with no pictures, but she's really funny, so it's okay).

Last Saturday, Nate decided we needed to do something active, since we spent all of Friday night watching Friends and Gilmore Girls (well, I watched Gilmore Girls - he refused to watch with me). So we decided to go with Damien, Natalya, Brandon & Travis to Bridal Veil Falls.

We packed a picnic, which included Salt and Vinegar chips (which, in my opinion, made the whole picnic worth it) and headed to the Falls.

I have to explain here that when I was little, we lived in Roosevelt Utah and anytime we drove to Provo, we drove past Bridal Veil Falls. I think I spent the entire 2 hours with my head turned to the left, looking for the Falls. I just couldn't believe how pretty they were.

Anyway, we ate our picnic, then hiked to the bottom of the Falls. It was a rather hot evening, so it was nice to get the spray of the water to cool off.

I'm pretty sure I ruined my shoes, but it was fun and definitely good to be exercising. :)