Darkness falls

This was our street yesterday:

Let me back up. Yesterday at about 5 a.m. I woke up to a couple of bright flashes of light outside. A second later, the power went out. I peeked out our window (which doesn't look out onto the street), didn't see anything wrong other than the fact that the streetlights were out, and went back to sleep.

What I didn't know was that a semi truck had rolled over a block from our apartment and taken out three telephone poles. The driver was OK, but the crash left some serious damage that took literally almost a day to repair.

When we got home from work, the street was still blocked off, the power was still out and the temperature in our house was about 10,000 degrees. We realized our fridge hadn't been running for twelve hours, so we ran over to the gas station and brought back a couple bags of ice, which we stuffed into our freezer along with as much perishable food as we could fit.

With every reason to leave the house we headed up to the temple, where we had an awesome session. When we got back we heard the power was supposed to be turned back on by 10 p.m. But when that time rolled around, the electric company was still stringing wires across the new telephone poles, and we were doing this:

Monopoly Deal!

Yes, that is a candle. Our food was in a literal icebox and our house was illuminated by candlelight. It was like we were living in the 19th Century—except for our cell phones and iTunes, that is.

And it was fun.

But we were sure glad when the power came back on at 1:00 this morning.

Pizza, Perseids, and pizzazz

So this past Wednesday we finally pulled out the pizza stone we got as a wedding present. I have no idea how a pizza stone lay unused that long in our home, but it has now been put to good use. Stephanie made the dough and pizza sauce from scratch, and I helped out with the toppings—though I may have eaten more olives than I actually sliced.

Steph did a great job on the pizza. It. Was. Delicious.

Homemade pizza. Yum!

Thursday night we went up the canyon to watch the Perseids meteor shower with Stephanie's friend from work and her husband. At first we drove up to the overlook at Squaw Peak, but apparently half the people in Provo had the same idea. Also, the city lights made it hard to see the sky, and someone near us started singing, "Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars...." So we left.

We drove back down the mountain in a different direction, pulled off to the side of the road and threw some blankets down. We were alone, it was quiet—except for the occasional car we thought would run us over in the dark—and we were able to see quite a few shooting stars. It was totally worth it.

The next evening, spurred on by extra energy and an insatiable need for more pizza, we decided to go to Salt Lake for our date night. We went to The Pie—one of our favorite pizza places—for dinner, went to Temple Square to see the new scale model of the Salt Lake Temple, and walked around the Gateway Mall. We got our pizza fix, wore ourselves out completely, and had a great time.

Roughing it

This past weekend we went camping together for the first time—and it was a blast. After work on Friday we headed up to the Uintas with Justin's sister Caitlin and her boyfriend, Sean, whose family has a cabin and some land in the mountains that we camped on.

It was car camping at its finest. We had the tent, the fire, the log benches and all the other trappings of a classic campsite. And less than fifty yards away we had a refrigerator, a sink, and—most importantly—a bathroom. Even as one who would rather backpack through the wilderness eating dehydrated food and digging latrines, I (Justin) really enjoyed the setup we had. It was hard to beat. Check it out:

In the absence of a hammer, we used this large stick to pound in the stakes.

Our hot dog skewers were a little too short, but human ingenuity won out.

At night, we sat around the campfire, played cards, and checked out the stars. It's amazing how clearly you can see the Milky Way when you get away from the city lights. And in the morning, we had a tasty breakfast of hot chocolate, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and orange juice. There may have been a few cinders in the cocoa and eggs, but it's camp food, right?

Cooking eggs over the coals

Hot chocolate. Cheers!

The flies were particularly obnoxious and took a liking to Stephanie's hair for some reason. This was her solution:

After breakfast we took some time to explore our surroundings.

Drinking from a mountain spring

Caitlin and Sean at the river

And us—showing a lot of school spirit, apparently

Basically, we had a great time!

Paint it black

Stephanie is an awesome decorator. Ever since we got married, she's been watching for cheap or free furniture and decorations that she can fix up and use in our home. They've all turned out great. Here's the latest project, a long-awaited night stand:

After a careful spray-paint job, it looked like this:

When our next-door neighbors moved out a couple months ago, they had some things they were going to take to D.I. and asked Stephanie to see if there was anything we wanted. She settled on a big entertainment center (ours was small, plastic, and bowed under the weight of our TV). We spent the weekend sanding and painting it, and when the dust settled—and believe me, there was a lot of dust—it was just like new.

This is after we'd already sanded and started priming the wood, but you can still make out the brown color it was when we started.

Putting on the primer

Adding a coat of paint

The finished product.

Because "weblog" just sounds weird...

I guess this marks the reaching of a new relationship milestone in the digital age. After meeting, becoming Facebook friends, dating, announcing our relationship on Facebook, getting engaged, announcing that on Facebook, and getting married, we now have a blog. Getting a blog is the equivalent of a couple buying their first TV in the 1950s, building their first cabin in the 1850s, or getting their first Franklin stove in the 1750s. It bespeaks establishment. Permanence. So what if we live in a fourplex with a one-year lease? We now have a solid presence in cyberspace. And here at our blog we hope to keep you in the loop about the goings-on of our life together and our adventures as we reach the milestones that are still out there.