Adventure #20: Wedding, Concert, and Rain - Lots of Rain

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

September 27, 2014

September 27th was a long, but good day. We started the day by waking up at about 5:30/6:00am so we could make it to a friend's wedding at 8am. We hopped in the car at 7am and headed to Salt Lake. Jordan and I had both had a long week, so we were very tired the entire drive. 

We got to the Salt Lake temple and the ceremony started. It was very nice, and it was fun to meet the bride for the first time. haha  Our friend who got married, his name is Cesar. He is from Peru and served his mission with Jordan in Colombia. I met Cesar when Jordan and I were just friends about two years ago. Cesar is a very sweet and hard working man, so it was nice to see him so happy to get married. It was also fun to see friends and also people who served a mission with Jordan and Cesar.

These boys had a lot of fun catching up (Jordan is in the middle with Cesar).

You can tell they really missed each other.

They also forgot how to pick up a person. I'm just glad they didn't drop Cesar.

After the wedding was over, we had 8 hours to kill until the reception that night. Luckily, we had planned ahead. Jordan got a sweet deal for some concert tickets in Salt Lake. The concert didn't start for a few hours, so we just hung around the mall. It's amazing how much fun you can have walking around, doing nothing. 

The concert was going to start soon and so we started to walk to the address on our tickets. It was raining a lot so we got pretty wet just walking a few blocks. Also, Jordan didn't bring a jacket, so that didn't help. lol  When we got to the concert entrance, we realized that it was an outdoor concert... and it was still pouring rain. Chad and Kylie were coming to the concert with us and were on their way. Jordan and I decided to wait for them before we went in to the concert. We also decided to wait because the line to get in was very long and was not covered from the rain. 

We didn't really know what to do, and we had heard the tram was free if you stayed in the city, so we checked it out. We also knew that we could sit down and stay out of the rain if we went on the tram. So we waited.... don't we look so cute? Not knowing what was going to happen next?

We got on the tram that went south. We didn't really care which direction we went, just as long as we got back okay. We were on the tram for about three or four stops, when the announcement came on about showing payment at the next stop. We started to panic because we thought it was free (I guess it was mainly me panicking). As soon as we got to the next stop we jumped off the tram. Then we waited for a tram to take us back. 

We asked someone else waiting if we needed to pay to get back to downtown Salt Lake. A lady told us that we were just one stop too far from having a free ride. We were at the first stop where you had to pay. So we bought our tickets (luckily they weren't very expensive). And hopped back on the tram. We decided to head back to the mall to kill more time (and we didn't really feel confident taking the tram anymore). The whole tram thing ended up not being a big deal, but man, I have such a hard time doing spontaneous things! I like to plan everything out. Luckily we made it back to the mall just fine AND it didn't cost us too much.

This is what we saw when we hopped off the tram. Even though we were wet from the rain, it sure was a beautiful day (especially with the temple in view).

We met up with Chad and Kylie at the mall and then we headed to the concert. Fortunately it wasn't raining very much when we got there. What we didn't realize was that Neon Trees wasn't going to play for another three or four hours! They were going to play at the same time as Cesar's wedding reception! We listened to the band who was on stage for about 15 minutes and decided it wasn't worth staying. We went back to the mall for the third time and got some hot cocoa. It felt very nice after being cold and wet most of  the day. We did get a few good pictures from the concert though... :)

Chad and Kylie headed home and we headed to the wedding reception. The reception was very fun to watch. I say this because Cesar and his new bride are both very good at soccer. So for part of their reception they played soccer!

They were so cute! It was such a unique and fun reception. 

When we started the day, we thought the rain might put a damper on our plans (pun intended). We were glad that the rain just made our day more fun.  :)

Adventure #19: Tucanos - Brazilian Grill

"Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale." - Elsa Schiaparelli

*I thought this quote was kind of funny, but it kind of describes how I felt about eating in this post. lol

September 26, 2014

Every September Jordan and I look forward to going to Tucanos for dinner. Tucanos is a Brazillian Grill in Provo and it is DELICIOUS!!! If you are part of their birthday club, you get a buy one get one free coupon to use during your birthday month. And we were lucky to have Ashley and Austin with us (Austin's birthday is also in September). Before we went to dinner we walked around the Riverwoods (the shopping plaza where Tucanos is). We spent most of our time in the toy store because they have really cool stuff. We played a few rounds of Spot It and we reminisced while looking through all the candy.  

Finally we were seated! It's an all you can eat deal, so we really did eat all that we could! They have servers that bring around different kinds of meat and cut it on to your plate. Then you can get all your side dish stuff from the buffet. Ahh... the food was sooooo good... Jordan and I especially love the brisket (pictured below). I think I had like three rounds of brisket along with a bunch of other meat. Just thinking about that brisket makes my mouth water... I NEED that recipe. If anyone has this recipe or another brisket recipe, LET ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY!!!! :) 

Sorry this is not the best picture of my food, but I forgot to take a picture until my last round of meat.

Because it was mine and Austin's birthday, we all shared a huge piece of cake. Ashley and I took some pictures to remember the moment....

The cake was so good (I mean, it's chocolate, so it has to be good!)! Then the birthday kids took a final picture together. This was the best way to end our birthday month!

Adventure #18: BYU vs UVA

"One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it." - Knute Rockne

September 20, 2014

Jordan and I didn't get an All Sports Pass for BYU, but we were lucky enough to get some tickets from a friend! The BYU vs UVA game was the only football game we were excited about, so getting tickets to watch the game was perfect. Because Jordan is from Virginia, he's always cheered for UVA. So he wore his Virginia gear and I wore my BYU stuff. Below is the view from our ticket seats.

It was a pretty good view!

It was kind of awkward for Jordan because he was cheering for both teams. Whenever he cheered for Virginia, this little boy on the right (pictured below) would turn around and give Jordan the funniest look. I didn't get a good picture of his face, but I suppose it's for the better. I'm telling you, this kid could not believe a living person would cheer for a non-BYU team. He looked at Jordan like Jordan was a crazy person. And it wasn't just a quick glance, it was a full on stare-down! haha

So we decided to move to an area where we could cheer freely: the visitor's section. It also happened to have closer seats, so it was a win-win. The people in the visitor's section were so nice! 

We could see just about everything on the field! (When they were on our side of the field)

Jordan felt at home in so many ways sitting in the visitor's section. Something happened soon after I took this picture, but I will tell that story at the end of this post.

Jordan and I had some friends that were sitting in the student section, so we decided to check it out.

Now we were close to the other endzone! lol

I've realized the students are usually fun to sit by. They enjoy the game for the game and tend to have a good attitude. Even though there's always that one person that tries to comment on every play but has NO IDEA what they are talking about, it's still pretty fun.

Okay, now for story time. Below is a picture of some UVA fans we sat behind while we were sitting in the visitor's section. They were super nice and funny. They had school spirit, but they also had good sportsmanship. Unfortunately there were some BYU fans a row or two in front of these UVA fans that did not have the same sportsmanship.

The girl with her hands in the air was so cute. She was cheering almost the entire game, but in a nice and fun way. She would dance to the music and cheer for her team. She was just having a blast. It made the game fun for us, too.

Continuing the story.... There was one BYU fan, sitting directly in front of the UVA fans, who's behavior was completely uncalled for. Anytime BYU had a good play (and I mean anytime! It was seriously every few minutes), he would turn around and face the UVA section and boast. He usually did this by yelling UVA's cheer to the UVA fans as a taunt. It was just silly, but the UVA fans just tried to enjoy the game despite his boasting. 

The BYU fan's behavior continued throughout the game, and was even more over the top during the third quarter. Finally he started saying something directly to the UVA girl (the same one from the picture). I didn't hear every word at the beginning, but after the BYU fan finished saying some choice words, the UVA girl finally said something. She told him he was an a** and that he was not a very kind person for yelling at her and the other UVA fans. The BYU fan said some choice words back to her. Then, another BYU fan said that he was going to make sure the UVA girl got kicked out of the game for her language. Anyway, the poor girl was just being attacked by a group of BYU fans. I felt especially bad because they were getting on her case for swearing. They completely disregarded the fact that one of the BYU fans was also swearing (using more swear words than she had).

The situation was just bad. The UVA girl sat down and she just looked super sad. Her husband was trying to calm her down, and she just kept telling him how sorry she was.

Luckily for me, I married a stud. As soon as the quarrel was over, Jordan went to talk to the UVA girl. He told her that he was a BYU student and fan, but obviously also a UVA fan because he was wearing his UVA shirt and hat. Jordan apologized for the other BYU fans and told them that not all BYU fans are that mean. He said there are good and bad people everywhere, and that he hopes she won't judge BYU because of the contentious fans.

I was so glad Jordan did that. She seemed a lot better after Jordan talked to her. Everything that had happened made me feel so sad. So sad that these BYU fans  completely missed a missionary opportunity. Most people know that BYU is a religious school. I wish that they would have taken advantage of having visitors at the stadium. Show people that we love Christ by being Christlike to ALL. We don't need to proselyte or anything, but we should always be good examples of our church and of Christ, no matter the situation.