Canyon Lands 1/2 Marathon!

Last Saturday we went down to Moab where Muriel and I ran the half marathon in Moab. It was so beautiful! It was also, so hard!

Our goal was to run without stopping and we made it! Muriel was really optimistic about the whole thing. Every time we stopped at a water station Muriel always said, "Thank you so much for your support!" Also periodically in the race Muriel and I would give each other high 5 and say, "Go us! We're doing it! Only 6 more miles to go!" Heh. Every now and again we would yell out, "Wahoo!" to give our own selves some support. It was great running it with Muriel. Her optimism provided me with more energy.

Along the run we ran into a man that had a 5o in 50 by 50 t-shirt. I asked him about it. He told me that he and his son's friends had a goal to run 50 half marathons in 50 states by the time they were 50. So hardcore! I wonder where they would run in Alaska? We also ran into a man wearing a disco suit. It wasn't polyester! It looked somewhat made out of breathable cotton but... it was interesting. I asked him if he felt any heat and he said no, I also asked if he trained in it, he also said no. He did tell me he was going to wear it out to dinner. I thought that was pretty hardcore. I dont know if I would run in something that wasn't your typical "exercising" outfit. Hm.

Also, near the end of the race---mile 11--- you come out of the canyon and run on the high way. That is usually where you start having more supporters on the road waving you on. Every time we saw a little kid sticking out his hand in the street for a high five Muriel would say, "Let's go give them high 5!" It's sweet, but after running 11 miles it seems the only thing you're thinking about is, "I must finish.... I must finish... keep running.... keep running...." Thinking about going out of your way, even if it is 3 or 4 inches to the side, just seems too much. However, Muriel was ever the optimist and I can also proudly say we did give high 5 to every little kid who had his hand sticking out. :)

It was a good run. Matt didn't run it with us but he met up with us at mile 12 and shouted, "Don't stop now!" I was thinking, "Oh... geez, easy for you to say!" It was nice however to have the support. :)

It was really, really, hard and I almost wanted to cry at the end because I was so tired---I think I'll do it again next year. If you want to do it.... let me know! We should run it together! It's triumphant!

This and That

Sometimes I get these moments where I think, "Ta dah! This is a moment that should be blogged." I'm not quite sure what the rules and regulations to blogging is and what would be considered worth reading but I've now found myself at my computer typing something up...

Today in primary a women told us that while she was living in New Orleans the LDS church their shared their chapel with Jews. Jews worship on Saturday so it was convenient for them to use it on Sunday. In any case a jewish couple walked in one Sunday morning because they missed their meeting on Saturday. They sat through the meetings and came into primary where they were singing, "Follow the Prophet". The jewish women loved the song and taught them a dance to go a long with it and today in primary we learned the simple version of the song. We danced jewish style in primary. We raised our hands, stepped from side to side, twisted, and shouted "HEY!". It was awesome.

Two weekends ago Matt and I went tubbing near Park City. EVERYONE MUST DO IT! Take Jeremy Ranch exit and turn left at the stop sign. Follow the road and you'll see it. It is so awesome! Tubbing was a fantastic experience. You choose a tube and they hook the tube up to this machine that takes you up the mountain. So it's more or less a free ride up. Look at the pictures... When they weren't taking you up and you had to walk to load the escalator like technique, Matt was sweet enough to pull me. :) We went with Salina and her friend Scott. We ran into this little kid who was probably 5 or 6. We were just playing around bumping out tubes into each other in a "mature" like way. Well this little kid that none of know ran and jumped on his tube purposely running into Salina. He laughed and smiled and ran ahead of us in line. He was super cute.

I also went to Moab a couple of weeks ago. Aline rubbed mud all over her face. I thought this video was so funny of Aline's explanation as to why she did it. I like to watch it when I'm not happy. It makes me laugh. Maybe because we're sisters and I get the inside joke? I dont know if anyone will think this is as funny as I do....

Kid Quotes

Sometimes I think I should have some type of quote book where I record all interesting things my students say. I think the quote of the week, this week, was when one boy turned to one girl and said:

"If you were the devil you would kill us."

I'm not sure where the conversation was coming from. It was just something I happened to pick up randomly.

My all time favorite quote was one teacher overheard one of my students say:

"Ms. Longstaff doesn't know it.... but we are going to lock her out of the room and have a party! We are going to listen to music with swear words in it!"

Old Habits Die Hard....

Cooking.

If you really know me that last word with a combination of the title of this post probably has caused you to smirk a little bit.

My room mates in college would make fun of me after I made something. I would always introduce any meal that I wanted to share with them, with the phrase, "Well it tastes good to me." My room mates realized that just because I thought it tasted good to me, wasn't a promise that it would taste good to anyone else.

I've had accidents in the kitchen where I am baking cookies and I want to run to the neighbors to do this "one quick thing"--- only to be gone for 30 mins and coming home to an apartment that smells like smoke, black hard cookies in the sink, and unhappy roommates. I'll never forget the time a similar episode happened but instead of cookies it was me frying fish on the stove in oil. I specify oil, so you can only guess what catastrophe follows. My dear roommate Emily was minding her own business, studying in the kitchen like any good college student would be doing. She smelt fire. When she turned around to investigate what smell this was she saw the little flame that my negligence had caused on the stove.

Cooking is not my forte. I am happy to say that since I've been married my skills have improved a little bit. Matt is a great example with his excellent cooking.

Well there is a point to this brief summary of my unfortunate cooking experiences.

Visiting Teaching.

Now for those of you unfamiliar with Visiting Teaching it's basically an opportunity to serve in the church. Visiting teaching allows sisters at church to get to know each other, to create a support network, and it's more or less an opportunity to have a best friend at church. I love visiting teaching because I know when done diligently it really produces friendships. However, I'll admit I feel it has it's awkward beginnings. One of my visiting teachers came over tonight for the first time.

In Brazil I loved the hospitality. Every time we went to visit someone they usually gave us some juice or a little piece of cake. I believe that food can bring people together! I wanted to make something for my visiting teacher so I could create a bit of a friendly environment. Who doesn't like to chat over tasty treats?

Because I really didn't have time to make bread I decided to go buy some orange roll mix. I love orange rolls! When I got home I immediately threw them in oven. I set the timer so it wouldn't be too late but the time I set wasn't enough so I set a new time and thought to myself, "Oh I better check back before it beeps." Well... I got involved with something else and I didn't check before he beeped. When I opened the oven the rolls looked a little crispy.

Why am I always prone to burning things?!?!?!

Anyways I had imagined them looking juicy and warm on my coffee table so I could offer them casually to my visiting teachers when they showed up, but I was embarrassed. The whole time she was talking to me I kept thinking of what I was going to do. Finally I decided that I wanted to give one to her because it was a friendly gesture.

I gave her one, but only first saying, "Im sorry it may be a little crispy but I really wanted to give you something." I'm not really sure why I said that. Maybe I wanted her to know that I knew why it didn't taste good. She smiled and said, "That's okay I like them crispy." I smiled really big and wanted to laugh wishing someone was there to witness this moment in my life!

She is suppose to say, "That's okay, I like them crispy." That's the NICE thing to say. I guess that's why Im writing in my Blog so someone else can be humored at this situation. This is just one more cooking experience gone wrong. Bleh.

Matt is off in India at some Salt Conference so I have no one to share the humoring, yet embarrassing moments, in my life at this moment. Yay for blogging!

Khan el khalili

We made it back to Cairo on a 2 hour train ride. Let me tell you... those train rides are totally GHETTO. We even rode 2nd class. Aline says there wasn't much difference betweeen first and second class. It was super gross. The seats had brown markings as well as the walls and there was just a disatisfying smell everywhere. Uber gross.

When we got to Cairo we met up with Aline's friend Mohammed who had a car. It was great that he had a car and he spoke really good english so I felt like I could ask him why Cairo traffic was SO BAD. He said he couldn't drive within the lines even if he wanted too. Seriously I think there is no explanation to it. I think it's based solely on intuition. You just feel traffic and you just know what to do. There is no rhyme or reason how you know if you pull in front of a bus it isan't going to hit you. I saw a shirt today at the market that said, "I SURVIVED CAIRO TRAFFIC". I hate to admit it but I kind of wanted to buy it because I feel like surviving the traffic in Cairo has been a great tirumph in my life. heh.

The name of the market we went to was Khan el khalili. There were shops everywhere! Every shop was specialized. They all threw out their english phrases as we walked by. "Hi how are you? Right this way! You want a scarf? Special price for you!" You know all the phrases you would need to know if you ran a shop in a market aim specifically for tourists. My favorite phrase of the evening was, "I dont know what you want but I have exactly what you're looking for!" Another humoring one was, "How can I take your money?" At which point Aline just looked at them and said, "You can't."

We saw a lot of souvenirs and we were pretty lucky to be with Aline's friend Mohammed. If someone was ripping us off he would start talking to them in Arabic and would start shaking his head and tell us in English the prices were too expensive.

He helped us buy a fanoos! It's an egyptian lantern children are famous for using during Ramadaan. Im not sure what the significance is but it's just another symbol of Ramadaan in Egypt. I taught about celebrations similar to Christmas that happen around the world to my 2nd grade class. I had them make paper lanterns that were like, "fanooses", but I never really knew what they looked like. When we came here I decided that I wanted one to show my class but I wasn't sure what it looked like. Mohammed was more than a hand and helped me find a real one for a great price. You'll see a photo of the Fanoos. It's nothing too fancy but I was excited about it! :)

We also found a section of the market for spices. Spices were so cheap. Usually at the store, in the US, for a little thing of yellow curry I think it's 7 dollars or so. We bought 3x as much as you would get in the little spice bottles for $1.50. It was so awesome.

We're going back to Saudi tomorrow. I'm excited to go back.

Traveling...

So for the past week Matt and I have been to the US, Amsterdam, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Matt had to go through a different airport so he got to go through Bahrain. We feel so lucky to have these traveling opportunities!

I mean it raelly just fell into place. I already had a one way ticket to Saudi for December so we thought, "Matt should just come this Christmas!" And then we realized that Egypt is a cheap flight from Saudi so we figured why not. Besides my folks got messed up with their airline tickets and aren't coming back to Saudi until after Christmas. Another good reason we came up with to fly to Egypt. Aline was here for a study abroad in the summer and is pretty familar with the area. Her arabic is a lot better than I thought. It's so impressive to see her get us around. She met some people here during the summer who worked at an English school. When she told them she was coming back with us they asked if she could bring us. They made an announcement that "THE AMERICANS ARE COMING". So everyone was pretty thrilled to see us walk throught he door. We felt like celebrities. lol.

It was fun to share ideas about our culture. We mostly asked them questions about what they do in Egypt and how they percieve things, etc. Egypt is predominantly Muslim. In no way is it as conservative as Saudi Arabia. Women and Men can intermingle in social settings and be seen in public together and can even go on dates. It was a shock for me to see that coming from my Saudi background. They are still relatively conservatives. Women and Men dont kiss before they're married and dont go to each other houses. A date is really being outside and going outside. They are see in the open but nothing behind closed doors. Which isan't too extremem, I think.

I think the coolest thing I learned was that you dont yell out a women's name in the street. So for example if you see your friend Nassima in the street you won't shout out, "NASSIMA." Or in Aline's case, "RHIANNON", you yell out the girl's brother's or father's name. "JAMES!" It's apparently more appropriate. Aline made the mistake of yelling my name like a drunk in the street. When I say like a drunk, I mean, like a drunk. She waved her hands in the air and in a belch like way shouted, "RHIAAAANNNNNOOONNNNNN", over and over again. People stopped and starred. We assumed it was because obviously she looks like a fool. We didn't catch the improper part. lol. Oh Aline. So unique!

We arrived in Egypt 2 days ago. We stayed in Cairo for one and we arrived in Alexandria last night. Cairo is CRAZY!

I feared we would be hit by a car!

There are traffic signals in the street, kind of, and sometimes you find a police man ready to blow his whistle as a signal for cars to stop, but mostly people cross the street wherever and they dont mind if the car passes inches infront of them. SO SCARY.

There are lines that designate lanes in the street but no one observes them. If you think you can fit between two cars you do it. I dont know if that makes any sense to you... but imagine this a street with 3 lanes but somehow you can see 4 or 5 lanes in some places. Cars just squish in. They honk if you're getting too close or flash their lights. I'm suprised I haven't seen any fatal accidents. I'm so scared to ride in a taxi and I am morbidly afraid to cross the street. I'm just grateful we got to Alexandria. The traffic is still crazy but not so bad. So far we haven't had to cross any major street--- Inshallah.

Today I went with Matt to some salt plant his company is working with. They asked Matt if he would bring his wife. I thought the invitation was sweet so I went along.

I had no purpose! I sat there for 8 hours looking at ponds and getting in out of the car to look at differen types of water. It was kind of interesting. I learned about salt concentration and what you should or should not see at a salt plant. Matt filled me in on a few big words they were using and helped me understand the ways of refining salt. I guess one of my major surpises was simply, "salt is really a big deal." I shot a picture whiel everyone was talking because I was so bored. See here is my husband doing his job! :)

It's funny to think that so many engineers and people world wide just hold salt to such a high regard. I never really put too much thought into the Morton Salt girl and her umbrella. I never even questions where that salt came from. Today I saw where salt is harvested and cleaned. Yes, cleaning salt is important.

In other news, before the end of the day was through Matt got SUPER sick. He kept complaining of these sharp stomach pains. We were with some of Aline's egyptian friends who were able to help us out and took us to a pharmacy. Believe me when i say this, the Pharmacy looked pretty legit and Matt was in so much pain he wanted a quick fix and they offered him a shot. I drilled the guy on what it was and one of Aline's friends said the shot was legit and she takes it herself. Matt agreed to it and got a shot. (He's better!) The point of this story is... it cost 1 American dollar for that thing! Can you believe it?! ONE AMERICAN DOLLAR!

Matt was cured but not after we went to the hospital because he didn't feel like it was working and he was in a lot of pain. When I say hospital we americans think of it as a big deal but know this--- Socialized Health care. It was really just a quick trip to the doctor who charged us 12 bucks so he could tell Matt nothing too serious was wrong and he shouldnt eat any fats or fried food for a while. 12 bucks! Anotehr steal of a deal.

Matt is healthy, so dont worry. He's sleeping so he can rise early tomorrow morning to go back to the Salt Plant and lick some mud. Oh gosh.

You should really see Matt in action when he talks to these people. We had like 9 engineers with us. Matt would ask a questions about how their plant was runned and they would all gather around speaking in Arabic and every now and again throwing out english answers. It was cute to see how they really thought his opinion mattered. (I'm not suggesting it didn't. I dont know anything about salt so anything Matt said seemed like gold.)

It was cute to see Matt do his part as he measured water and asked them questions on the types of soils they use and machinery. I'm telling you Matt really appeared to know what he was talking about. I know I already said, but truly, it was so cute.

Thanksgiving

I think I appreciate Thanksgiving more as a Teacher than a student. The things that 2nd graders are thankful is heart warming. Today in church someone mentioned a study done on people who gave thanks. There was a positive co-relation between people who were happier and people who were more grateful. The speaker in church also mentioned something along the lines of thinking of 100 things you are grateful for. I wonder if I could come up with 100 things I was genuinely grateful for. Not just my right eye, my left eye, my right foot, my left foot, etc... but things of real substance. 100 things? I love blogs you get a chance to expose yourself! Anyways I saw this video recently on YouTube. I wanted to share it. I felt inspired by the message of Thanksgiving.