Why my Life is Serendipitous

Currently I am watching the end of Serendipity. My house is clean, I have a lack of homework to do and I am relaxing for the first time in quite a while! I turned it on at the part where Sara finds the five dollar bill that had John's name and number on it. Yes, I did indeed get chills, it is a great movie so no judging. This serendipitous moment got me thinking about Mitch and I's story. It had its serendipitous moments as well, which gives me all the more reason to believe that we were made for each other.

It was my senior year (2008) and I was debating on which college I would be attending in August. I had applied to the U, Utah State and of course Weber State. I was accepted to all three and had received scholarships to the U and Weber State around May or so and had pretty much decided on Weber State because of the convenience of living at home while in college and I didn't have many friends headed to USU at the time. About a month after I had thought I made up my mind, I received a scholarship to USU. This pushed me over the edge and I was sold on becoming an Aggie. Serendipitous moment number one.

I was still trying to convince friends to attend there with me, and around April my two bff's (Heidi and Simone) and I heard about USU Aggiette tryouts. We decided to do it together. We all made it to the final cuts, but in the end only Simone made it. This influenced Heidi to try out for the Weber State dance team and I began making living arrangements on Utah State's campus with Simone.

About two weeks after tryouts, I was shopping with Heidi, who had made the Weber State dance team, when she received a phone call from USU's dance coach. She was offered a position on the dance team because someone was kicked off and Heidi was their first alternate. Heidi turned her down because she was all set at Weber State. A few minutes later I was called. I immediately called my previous dance coach and asked what I should do. She was confused as to why I hadn't said yes yet, so I called back and accepted the opportunity. Serendipitous moment number two. Think about it. It took two other fall-throughs for me to be put on the dance team that would lead me to the love of my life. I really doubt Mitch and I would have met if I was not on the dance team. With him on cheer he spent most of his time with them and Simone would not have introduced me to him because I doubt they would have become friends on their own. Therefore, destiny led me to my wonderful husband :).

By destiny leading to my husband it also led me to my major. I was an econ major my freshman year (I know, what was I thinking!?). Mitch persuaded me to take his anatomy class so I could be in his lab (he was a TA). Of course I took the class and here was where I discovered my love for the human body. This was serendipitous moment number three.

Mitch himself was a serendipitous discovery. I had never been attracted to "yell-leaders" nor had I thought that any men existed who were as good to women and as perfect as he was. I had dated yes, and knew many good guys but I had no idea what kind of guy I was looking for until I met Mitch, I guess I had never seen myself with someone as great as him. Anyways I guess that is serendipitous moment number four.

Alright, enough lovin on my man. Point is, I love Mitch and our serendipitous meeting. God has a plan for us and I think Mitch was supposed to be in mine. I love you babe! Hopefully my next blog will be another part of our African adventure, there are many more parts of our trips I have not blogged about
... I'll get on that later. Today I wanted to talk about Mitch :).

Nairobi, Where are Journey Began!

We arrived in Nairobi, Kenya around 2am I believe… We were picked up by a bus and taken to Sandavvy Guest House. The lady running the place woke up to greet us and was so welcoming and sweet. We had one full day in Nairobi before we headed to Masai Mara and we took full advantage. We woke up to a fabulous breakfast made by the guest house’s cook Moses (one of many Moses’ that we would meet on our trip). After our mango-pineapple-pancake filled bellies were ready, we headed to The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s Elephant Orphanage.

Alright, brace yourselves for this awesomeness. Now folks, THIS is the elephant orphanage on the new IMAX film Born to be Wild. Check out the trailer (Morgan Freeman is a true gem) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv2Af-H7ZnI
These loving Kenyans feed, care for and raise orphaned baby elephants. They sleep by them in stalls and wake up 2-3 times every night to feed them milk, it’s incredible. We were able to pet the babies, and ask the caregivers questions. My purse was even broken into by one of the babies. They were all filled with uber cuteness and I wanted to take one home.

While we were taken pictures of the elephants I was lucky enough to have my very first real life sighting of some dung beetles! And yes. They were busy rolling dung at the time, and it was at this moment I fell in love with AFRICA! It was great to say the least. On the way back out to the car we stopped by and saw the trust’s one and only orphaned rhino. This was the only rhino Mitch and I saw the whole trip but he was a cutie! After our elephant excursion we headed to fulfill my biggest dream at a giraffe home.

We went to a giraffe education center in Nairobi, where kids are taken on field trips and people go generally to learn more about the gentle giants. This was everything I hoped for and more. We were given food to feed the giraffes, we got to hug them, and even kiss them!

Our whole group was brave enough to do this and if you put one piece of food in-between your lips and a giraffe will stick its big blue tongue out and take it from you for a kiss! I loved it!! However, Mitch may have gotten even more excited than I did. My sweet husband thought it would be a great idea to put the food on his tongue and have a giraffe go there. And oh did they!! So yes, I fulfilled my dream by kissing a giraffe, but Mitch one-upped me by getting tongue! After our giraffe-lovin time we headed to a cultural place where we looked at some different hut styles people live in, and coerced to spend way too much on souvenirs. Next we went back to the guest house and the group went to their laptops and i-touches while Mitch and I headed straight to the bedroom ------- for a nap .

After resting we walked to a nearby Ethiopian restaurant which everyone who was feeling good loved.

Sadly this was the first night of many that I had some yuckiness in my stomach (cue traveler's diarrhea). The salad I had was great though! The second night in the city we decided to walk to find a more local restaurant. We knew it wasn't wise to walk at night in Nairobi so we headed out early enough. We walked to the city center and could still find no food, so we decided to ask a hotel. They gave us some options but they sounded very "touristy" so we asked for a more local place. Finally the kind concierge suggested Buffet Park. We agreed to try it and said we would just walk when she offered to call us a cab. She looked panicked and refused to let us "Mzungus" to walk a block in the dark in Nairobi. So we took a cab to preserve our lives apparently. Buffet park was.... an experience. There was loud music, some pool tables and plenty of people present, all good things, but then it went downhill. To order we went to the butcher and picked our meat.

Waited about 2 hours to get food (little did we know this was just a hint of what every restaurant would be like in Africa), and then when it did come out there was no silverware.

Luckily it was dark so most of the group could get the questionable meat down (I probably only had one piece). Oh and bone marrow is apparently a delicacy there? Good stuff. The next morning we packed up in a safari van and headed for our next adventure: the beautiful Masai Mara.

Explanation for the Disappearance

My husband and I are failures. We came home from our Uganda trip (3 months ago), with high hopes of blogging galore about our amazing adventures in Africa. We decided the only possibility of telling all of our experiences was to divide and conquer. I would write the blogs for Nairobi, Masai Mara, Murchison Falls, and the Babies home while Mitch would tackle the blogs for Istanbul, Jinja, Mt. Subinyo, and the Cranes Game.

3 months later I have written 3 of my blogs (not posted yet) and Mitch has done none. I guess he IS in med school and what with all the money that goes into this glorious education he should probably spend time on it. I was trying to wait until he had done Istanbul but I can wait no longer. Long story short: I am going to start posting about Africa. I may try to post other happenings in our life between these posts but we will see how that goes since we all know I am such an avid blogger. We shall start with Nairobi. Stay tuned! I should be able to post a few with Mitch being out of town for the weekend so wish me luck!

26 and Aging.

Mitchell is 26 yrs old! Hooray for Mitch! I will admit, I was stumped on what to do for his birthday this year. I feel like he always does extraordinary well on his gifts for me and mine are always a fail. We decided part of his birthday would be a mountain bike that we want to get him in a few months so I was not going to get him a tangible present.

He had to work on his birthday so I put his card and some jerky in his white coat pocket for him to have in the morning. In his top pocket I put a list of 26 reasons I love him, and in the fridge a can of mango juice (his fav) was waiting for him. While he was gone I made brownies and cinamin swirl cake with cheesecake frosting to have when our friends came over to play games. Then I attempted to make his favorite meal: feijoada.

Feijoada is a brazilian dish that consists of black beans, garlic and different meats and rice. Legit brazilian feijoada has all the unwanted parts of pigs and such because it was originally meals that slaves in brazil would make from scraps of leftover animal meat. Too much history. Sorry.
Anyways, I made it with sausage and bacon and let it cook in the crockpot while I went to church. It turned out delicious, not exactly like the brazilian restaurants but it was great! After dinner our friends came up to our apt and we played games and sang happy birthday to Mitch and Logan(he turned 26 soon after mitch!).

Mitch got somewhat of a birthWEEK because on Tuesday we went to The Lion King ( where the creativity with costumes rocked my world. I LOVE GIRAFFES!), and then Thursday we went to Chama's Steakhouse, a brazilian restaurant at Bright Leaf Square in downtown Durham. It was absolutely amazing. Their feijoada blew mine out of the water! we had fried bananas in cin-sugar and delicious steak and a free slice of Dulce de Leche cheesecale for his birthday. I had a great time celebrating Mitch's birthday! I hope he did too! ;) Happy Birthday one more time hon! I love you!

The Need of Being Versed..... in Fractions

Alright. I will admit it. I am a failure when it comes to fractions. Simple math KILLS me every time! I was the person constantly thinking how uselss it will be in REAL life. Well my friends, that just bit me in the butt.
Mitch has been doing the night shift for Labor and Delivery the past two night and his hair has been in need of a haircut for about two weeks. Whenever I cut his hair it takes at least TWO whole hours. Sad I know! Anyways, today I came home from work thinking I would let Mitch sleep until he needed to go to the hospital around 5:30. He wakes up and asks if I can cut his hair before work. The time is now 4:20. I though it would be a great way to ease me into faster haircuts. So I said yes!
The haircut was going great and I was making impecable time, when I have him look at it in the mirror to see what else he wants done. He asks if their is a shelf in the back and I reply yes a little one but I can easily fix it. I remember his mom saying something about putting the smallest cutter on the clippersto go over the shelf looking part. So I look at the fractions trying to figure out which would be perfect for fixing the shelf. I said a comment about the fractions and Mitch made fun of me so I decided to not ask again. I decided to use the 1/8 inch clipper thing (thinking that 1/8 of an inch would be what was getting cut off, not that that is how close of a shave I was giving his head). As soon as it made the first cut I shut it off and yelled "I ruined it!" I proceeded to sit on the floor and tear off the "1/8 inch" clipper from the shaver and began to cry. No worries it was just a few tears and it was because I felt bad. I cry. Welcome to my life.
Mitch just began laughing at me so then I was laughing/crying about his hair. I tried to fix it, but there was no fixing this. He left a few hours ago to go to work and we will attempt fixing it in two weeks or so when it has grown back. And this is a REAL life example of how understanding fractions and hair clippers is important. Here are some photos of Mitchells new haircut:

I thought that maybe if I took the photo at a different angle, it might not look so bad so i could show Mitch a decent shot... didn't work.