Sweet Emails from My Hubsand!

June 9th

My dearest Wife,

I'm just in my hotel (way nice hotel with a view of HK harbor). I've been walking around all day looking at shops and stuff while my visa is processing, and being really bored with it. The whole time i was walking around i kept thinking "Genevieve would love to see that" or "I wish Genny were here with me..." and the list goes on. Regardless, i walked and walked and then ended up back here to visit the pool and fitness room. Traveling isn't much fun when you are all by your lonesome.
Anyway, i love you and miss you already, and it's only been a day and a half! Here is a phrase in Thai for you (i'll use english words to make it easier to read) "Oh-tone-joang-tongue-tea-sood" that means endure 'till the end.

i love you!!!!!!!!!!!


Jefferson


June 10th

Dearest Genevieve,

I just got to the factory here in China a few hours ago. After arriving, i was invited by Maria (my contact here) to go get spicy food. Now, when she said spicy, i was expecting spicy. Instead, i got "spicy". The food was no hotter than your mom's hot japanese curry, and NOTHING compared to Thai food. So, Maria has now promised to feed me REALLY spicy food next time (after i started eating the chopped up chili peppers like popcorn...).

Anyway, life's good. But i still wish you were with me, oh the fun we'd have. I love you, and miss you.

your husband and lover 8) (that's me making googly eyes at you...)

Jefferson


June 11th

Dear Genevieve,

 today was pretty interesting. i found a problem with some of the warmers being produced. the warmer was shrunk much too small. and it's a problem found in almost all of them. the effect of pointing that out was similar to throwing a rock at a hornets nest. people were scrambling trying to see if the other 4 styles of warmers were that way too, how many of the warmers that were bad were salvageable, and how to fix the problem. It was quite a fun day.

Then i went and had Thai food with Maria, Miguel (the factory GM), and his wife Elma. We got Som Tum with only 5 peppers, and Maria started to sweat a lot from her face and her eyes teared up (and she'd only had a small bite). It was really funny.

Wow, i'm tired. i really need to go to bed. But i needed to tell you this. I love you, I love you, l love you.

love,

Jefferson


June 13th

My dearest,

Not too much has happened since i talked to you on the phone. I just finished my day and then went to bed. I did get to talk to Maria about the church though. She wanted to know what we thought about some things like death and such. It was a nice talk.

I haven't really left the factory (they have rooms that people stay in). My Dad should be here soon though, either tonight or tomorrow morning.

I really miss you Genny. Your sweet, happy personality, your playful body language, your beautiful eyes and the way they look at me. I miss all of you. :( . I love you Genevieve.

your loving husband,

Jefferson


June 16th

Dearest Genevieve,

Sorry it's been a few days since i've last written. The internet keeps being fickle with my computer... >:(

I've just been here with my Dad, watching what he does, and also trying to get in contact with Factories in Thailand.

We went shopping yesterday, my Dad bought a TON of shirts. I didn't buy anything (saving money for a couple suits in Thailand).

It's been a good trip so far. my Dad says that i've been doing exactly what he wanted, so i'm happy about that.
We might not be living in Asia after all (we still don't know yet), but i might be traveling out here more often if we don't.

I love you Genny. I miss you a lot, l really think you would have loved to have gone on this trip with me. I hope someday that we will come out here together.
Thoughts of you make my days brighter, and the thought of being with you again even more so.

I love you,

Jefferson


June 18th

Hi there beautiful,

i got back from those other factories. after we visited the first factory, we went and got lunch at this vegetarian restaurant. the food was all veggies, but looked, tasted, and had the texture of meat and fish and shrimp. it was amazing!
i've been learning a lot about my dads job. it's been a lot of fun learning about it, and being able to do some of those same things. its just frustrating not understanding chinese....

i say yes to the Sunday/ Monday skype! lets do it, even if its only for  a few minutes, it'd be worth it! (hopefully more than a few minutes)

words cannot describe my love for you, but i'll try a little bit. i love you more than there is room in my heart, you are my all, and i can no longer live without knowing that you're my love.

love,

Jefferson


June 29th

Dearest Genevieve,

I love you :)

I can't wait to see you on Sunday! I think about that every day. I will have several surprises for you on that day too... so be aware (shifty eyes). I don't want to email much to you, that way l can just tell you in person. But l do want you to know that l love you, and miss you terribly (hence my excitement for Sunday :) )

with love,

Jefferson

Mon Amour!

Dearest love of mine,
whom I adore,
I miss you so
and what is more,

There's just one week left
where we'll be apart
and then you'll be here
right back in my heart.

Come home to me soon
sweet darling adored
and stay in my arms
for ever more.

I can't wait to hold you
here in my arms
to hear my name on your lips
and see you and your charms.

You are my sweet boy,
and don't ever forget
that I am your wife
for a long time yet!

love your silly wife
who misses you so
and come home to her quick
so she can never let you go
again.

love,
genny

A Week Without...

...Jefferson. That's a sad thought. An even sadder one? We have three weeks left to go! What do I do with all of my free time? I clean like a banshee and look up recipes, trying to find the best dish to serve him for his first dinner home! (Is that being a little too optimistic? Planning that far ahead?)

...Goodies and constant snacking. My meals have consisted of granola bars, lean cuisines, salad, yogurt, and eating at my parent's or his for dinner. I'm feeling great, walking every day after work with my sisters. I haven't noticed the scale going down at all but, as my Dad told me, you can't lose a year's worth of weight in a week, or a month. That takes time, however my waist is already feeling slimmer!

...Missing a journal entry. Jefferson has always been intrigued by my journal since the very first time he ever saw me write in it. When he saw the tub of filled journals that I brought with me into our marriage, he understood what the sealer had meant in the temple when he called me to be the recorder in the family. But I was feeling so down about that lately. I used to collect gorgeous journals to fill over the years, but suddenly I was married and time became just a word. Months slip by without me writing a single word about anything! It became a rare sight instead of a normality to see Jefferson sneaking a peak at my thoughts (the first time he ever tried to read my journal was over my shoulder while I was writing in it! I told him that I don't have a problem with him reading it as long as I get to write it first!) and to be honest, I've missed that. So I promised him that while he was away, I'd write every day and he could read it to his heart's content when he gets home!

...Watching TV. Okay, okay, so if I said that I didn't watch any TV that would be totally lying, however, I've been cleaning and reading on my kindle so much that TV really isn't all that appealing. I forgot how fun it is to read and be able to "watch" the story in my mind. Ever since Christmas, Jefferson and I have been reading stories out loud to each other. We've read the following:

This was the first book we read together. I got to pick and I didn't want to pick something super long just in case we ended up not liking to read as a couple, but I also didn't want a hard read, either. This book was just perfect, cute, fun, and a happy ending!

Not sure how I felt about this one. Jefferson picked and I don't know, there's something about a six-year old space-boy who kills other children with his bare hands on "accident" that didn't really appeal to me. Go figure.

Pearls of Lutra is one of my top favorites (What? I don't look like a Redwall fan?) and has been since I was about twelve. Jefferson really liked how I do different accents for all the different animals!

By the same author of Jurassic Park, we were just getting to the interesting parts of this book, when Jefferson had to go and leave for a month! So I'm left hanging, wondering what's gonna happen!

Anyway, all is well at the Palmer house, aside from an acute sense of loneliness and a little pinch of hunger!

Everyone Knows to Never get Involved in a Land War in...

That's right folks: Asia. Jefferson left today for a month long sojourn in Asia, where he will visit China, Thailand and maybe Vietnam. The best part? It's all expenses paid, courtesy of our current employer. The worst part? The month without him.

I have set some pretty good goals to keep me occupied while he is out:

#1--Read some amazing novels. I did get an amazonkindle for my birthday which I love so much! Best invention since the toilet... I'm pretty sure...

#2--Eat healthy. Jefferson and I have always been suckers for going out to eat and it has wreaked havoc on my figure! That's gonna stop.

#3--Exercise. Ugh. I've always hated that word. However, I've been invited to go to a personal trainer with my sista-in-law and I'm gonna do it if for no other reason than I have nothing else to do, but hopefully because I want to loose some of the "first year 15" I've been packing around (and I'm being very generous when I say 15, by the way. In reality, it's a lot closer to... well... a bigger number, let's just say).

#4--Keeping a journal. I used to be so consistent in my journaling. It's something I've missed and although blogging is similar, it's not quite the same.

And just for laughs:

Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

When Jefferson and I were first married, we had an ongoing controversy of which was better, butter or margarine. Let me explain something to you: my husband is what I call a "pure-ist" in that he can't mix his foods and sauce is a big no-no. Love always asks me why I would spoil the flavor of a meat by adding bbq sauce to it. I on the other hand, I mix and slather and layer my foods, combining the flavors and dipping the entire schlew into sauce of some kind or other, be it as rich as gravy or as simple as ranch dressing. Knowing this, could you guess who liked which one? Yep. My husband was 100% a butter boy and I a margarine mama.

We kept up the rouse, teasing each other constantly about the difference in flavor and priceing, etc for several months into our marriage, going so far as to take a poll at a family reunion! (Mom and Granny both said that butter was better but margarine fit the budget.)

After a while though, I decided to be a good wife and sacrifice a couple of cents to get my husband what he'd grown up with and enjoyed his entire life. I picked out a brand that I'd seen at my parents house and started to buy that brand only.

One day, almost an entire year later, while at Jefferson's parents house for dinner, his mom pulled out a bar of the same brand I used for Jefferson. "I don't usually use margarine in this recipe," she said, "but I ran out of butter a few days ago and haven't been to the grocery store since."
"Oh no, that brand is butter,"I blurted out.
"Really?" she said. "I always thought this was margarine...?"
"No, it's butter," I said. "I use that same brand at home for Jefferson."

A while back (maybe a month or two ago...wow, it has been a while) our neighbors, Brennan and Sarah, invited us over for dinner. Brennan was cooking, and knocked on our door to ask if he could borrow a cube of butter. I rushed to the freezer and pulled out a whole box of my butter and handed it to him.
"Knock yourself out," I said.
"...Uh, this is margarine...Got any butter in that freezer?"
A snort escaped from Jefferson as I tried to hurriedly explain that it was butter, I'd been using it for almost a year and it worked like a charm. Love continued to chuckle and I felt heat rushing up my neck.
I spun on him. "What's so funny?" I demanded.
"Gen-hee-hee haw-haw-ny," Jefferson said, nearly in tears, "Brennan's rig-ha-hee-t. That's ma-ha-ha-rgarine. A-ha-ha." By this point, Brennan too was chuckling and I was furious.

As soon as the door shut behind our neighbor, I nearly exploded.
"What's so gosh-darn funny about this?" I said. "I've been buying this brand of margarine for the past year, thinking it was butter, and now, after I've told your mother and our neighbor that 'oh no, that's butter' now, of all times, you decide to tell me that all along it was margarine?!!"
"No, hee hee haw haw. That's not the funny part," Love said. "The funny part is that all this time you were trying to do something nice for me, thinking you were buying butter, and I thought I was doing something nice for you by letting you buy margarine!"

And for those of you wanting to know, the brand of margarine I was buying that I thought was butter for almost a year was Imperial, and it's the closest tasting thing to butter that's a not-butter-margarine I've ever had.

Lord of the Rings Meets Lost

It's been a year. Wow. That went fast. You know how people are always saying that the first year will go by fast? Believe them, because it does!

For our very first wedding anniversary, Jefferson and I wanted to go out of town, but not so far out that we'd be traveling for the better part of the trip, but far enough away that we could say we were "out of town." Jefferson suggested Moab, UT. Mistake #1--letting the husband pick the destination.

(For those of you who have never traveled with me, I am the worst Road Trip Buddy ever...pretty sure...I just fall asleep. The car starts and BOOM, I'm out like a light. Anywho...) 

After a nice five hour nap in my case, we pulled into Moab and the long awaited Vacation began. A day into it, and we were hiking at Arches National Park (so beautiful, but I've seen the Delicate Arch on every license plate in the state for the past nine years, so please explain to me why I have to hike 3.5 miles one way to see it when I can just look at the cars in the parking lot and get the same effect?) when Jefferson realized he'd left his wedding ring at the hotel (that was mistake #3. What was mistake #2? Letting the hubby wield the camera!):

one of the many attempts of Jefferson to get me to 

kiss him on camera in front of complete strangers... 

I wasn't really going for it.

we finally made it! 

can you see the tears in my eyes? 

that's because someone told me that now we had to hike back.

(not really, it was just super windy up there, 

as evident from my wayward locks!)

see that tiny speck in the middle of the arch?

 that's my husband. 

my six foot seven inch tall husband. 

eep!

look familiar to you Utahns?

no?

look at your license plate sometime.

Well, we decided not to worry too much about it just then, but come on! This isn't any old wedding ring: Jefferson and I have his parents' first wedding rings and they are total heirlooms these, I mean, they don't make 'em like this anymore, if you catch my drift. So when we got back to the hotel and we couldn't find it anywhere, you can imagine the panic. It's not like we could just run to the nearest Zales and get a duplicate! 

Jefferson was such a good sport. He decided to not let the loss of his ring ruin the entire trip, but I knew he was totally bummed about it, as did the entire hotel staff. Poor boy couldn't bug 'em enough! 

Two days and still no sign of the ring. The hotel cleaning crew had searched the room, their carts, and the laundry without a trace. Times were getting desperate, I mean they were about to search the garbage for pete's sake! (Have you ever seen the contents of a hotel garbage? Tis not a sight we shall soon forget!) 

We were relaxing in our hotel room after a nice swim, when the phone rang. The phone. The phone is ringing! This is serious! Turns out Jefferson's ring had been hiding in a vacuum bag the whole time! Well hallelujah for that, but don't you think, if you had sucked up a ring in your vacuum, that something was amiss when the machine started to clank and chug and rattle? How'd they miss that? I mean, our vacuum goes into a conniption if I try and suck up a staple, let alone a wedding band.

The rest of the vacation was spent with peace of mind, if not leisure. (How can one truly relax when one's husband insists on taking one traipsing through the desert? I mean, really.) On the way home, we swung by Goblin Valley. That hike was at least one that I liked! Lots of fun climbing and jumping and so many good photo opportunities! 

somehow we managed to wear the same 

colored t-shirts almost every day that week.

if he wore purple, I somehow managed 

to wear purple, and vice-versa.

Can't wait for the next year! Only this time, I'm picking the destination! Just kidding, but seriously!

With Pink and Blue Forget-Me-Nots

Happy Birthday to me!
I'm finally twenty!
...
And you know how the rest of the song goes.

Ever since January, Jefferson had been planning a big surprise for my birthday and I wasn't able to figure it out. Last night, my sister-in-law, Jessica, had the task of keeping me away from our apartment, my parent's house, as well as my husband's parent's house, too. We went to Color-Me-Mine and bounced ideas off of each other as to what to paint on our ceramic items. Then we had dinner at Coney's and took a trip around Barnes & Noble. I was sorely tempted to buy a book, but Jess was determined that I could find it cheaper online and wouldn't let me squander my money. This behavior I found quite odd, but soon forgot as we headed to the mall to find a cute outfit for me to wear.

The next day, after work, Jefferson dropped me off at home with the instructions to get dressed somewhat quickly but look nice, too. Obviously, he's a boy and has no idea what a feat that is!

What happens next deserves a preface:

When we first got Netflix, my favorite show was Cake Boss. Not only did the gorgeous cakes feed my creativity, but Buddy reminds me of my dad:

(personally, I think they have the

same hair, nose, and body type :) )

But I loved this show. I would do all my household duties with this show going on in the background. I loved to see what Buddy and his crew could do with their skills.

Well, my hubby took it into his head that he should be my Cake Boss. So for my birthday, with the help (well, sorta, but not really) of my sisters, and the tremendous skills of his mother, they managed to produce a cake that looked startingly similar to the one on Sleeping Beauty, you know the one "with pink and blue forget-me-nots"? In other words, instead of looking like this:

or this:

or even this:

My cake looked a little more along the lines of this:

Okay... not quite that bad. More like this:



Thanks to Jefferson's mother's ingenuity, and a bunch of wooden skewers and toothpicks, it was a little more sturdy in that it could stand on it's own, but there were a few errors due to my siblings and spouse:

#1--whoever was responsible for pouring out the water (Mandy), put too much in the bottom layer so that by the time all the other layers were stacked on the top, it was sinking and tilting dangerously.

#2--whoever was responsible for purchasing the cake mix (hubsand) bought at least eight too many, leaving me with the remainder. Anybody have good recipes for vanilla cake mix?

Besides that, the birthday went off without a hitch. We barely made a dent in the cake even with Jefferson's family and all of my family, minus one brother and plus a cousin. For my gift, I got my very own AmazonKindle Electronic Reader! Yay! Jess's strange behavior from the night before when we were at the book store suddenly made sense! She wasn't about to let me buy a book when she knew all along what my birthday present was. Thank goodness for sisters-in-law!