The Wizard of Oz

It had been almost what 4 maybe 5 months since I had been in a show. After dealing with all the pointless and stupid crap that I put up with in the last show I was in with one of the female cast members, I had decided to take a theater break. Yeah 4-5 months isn't that long, but when you have been doing shows as often as I had in the past it was quite the break. The Scera was going to be starting their summer season soon, and I already had the shows planned that I wanted to try out for. They had The Wizard of Oz, All Shook Up, and Fiddler On The Roof planned for the Summer. I planned on trying out for the first and last one, mainly cause the director of the middle show is a horrible person, that directs horrible shows. A show she did last year made the least amount of money and was the worst show in the history of the 25 or more years the Scera has been around. So I try and stay away from her shows. Besides one of my favorite directors was directing the last one and I love to work with him. A director by the name of Jeremy S. was directing The Wizard of Oz. I made a show that he directed a few years back but decided to drop out due to some people issues. I really thought doing this show though would be fun and so I gave it a shot.

Auditioning is still the bane of my theater existence and I shall hate it till the day I die. I walked in the room sang my song and he commented on how he liked my voice, which made me feel better. Then he let us know that they would be sending out a callback email later that day, and that callbacks would be that Saturday. I went about my day and got my email around midnight. They had called me back for the Tinman!  I was pretty stoked. I went home printed out the music that I needed for the callback and went along my way. Callbacks were killer. The dancing that we had to learn was pretty intense and I always tend to worry that if they ever asked us to dance by ourselves instead of the groups they put us in, I would be screwed. Luckily they take groups of like 6-8 and have them all go at once. So we all look retarded instead of just one of us which is always nice. They then let everyone go and put us in our groups to sing of girls and guy parts. We Tinmen were the very last ones to go, and it kinda sucked cause we were there for about 6 hours. Long day.
What was cool is that they lest us know if we made the show by that night. Which is always nice cause you don't have to be paranoid for the next week waiting to see if you got in the show or not. I made the show as a Crow/Ensemble.  The Crows were considered a lead which was cool and we got our names in the programs and such. Basically there was three of us and our job was to heckle the scarecrow during his song, we got to sing and dance and threw in a bit of a funny part from a show that I can't remember for the life of me. I was actually surprised that I got a semi lead part and not just ensemble, mainly because that seems to be all I get when I audition at the Scera. So it was cool to get a decent break out of the normal role.The rehearsals were pretty easy and at the same time pretty stressful. It was a lot of hard dancing like usual, which I actually like, but at the same time sucks cause it means I have to work harder then probably everyone else to learn it. Especially since for the last week and a half of rehearsals I was out of town for a business trip. My partner for the partner dance as again Lauren. Love the girl, she is so fun to work with and really a big help. The show itself was just a blast. No drama, well mostly no drama, a lot of really great people and made some great friends. The performances went really well. We had a girl in the cast that thought she was all that and could do anything and was friends with everyone. She was some sort of dancer, but she wasn't that great so I don't know why. But one night she tried a stunt fell down and apparently busted her elbow or something. I had to fill in for her in one of the dances. We did have a few technical issues with the Virtual Wizard never really working but all in all it was such a fun show. The directors were awesome and we had some big audiences. Really loved the show, and being a Crow was my favorite. We were only on stage for maybe 10 minutes, but the 5 of us that were on stage(3 Crows and Dorothy and Scarecrow) seemed to really get the crowed into the show. Overall it was a  ton of fun and I look forward to hopefully working with this director more in the future.

Life Lessons

It has been a pretty interesting couple of weeks. I went and tried out for a show down at a new theater in Provo, an old roommate of mine that I lived with last year opened a new theater with his wife. They had done a few shows in the last few months since they had been opened but they kept casting within the people that had helped open the place. From what I read the shows were pretty great. So I was interested in getting involved with the theater, hopefully with a show soon. I had just gotten done with The Wizard of Oz, which was a great show. I was looking for something else to do that would be a last party show before I had to buckle down and start preparing for the wedding. Not much that was going on that I was available for. Mainly because the two shows that I had wanted to do, South Pacific at the Hale and Little Shop of Horrors at the Scera were getting done at times close to our wedding. South Pacific starts the day of our wedding, and Little Shop ends the day after our wedding. So I was pretty much stuck in a show rut so to speak because there wasn't anything going on that I would be able to do, until the wedding was over.

I was looking around on Facebook one day and a friend of mine posted an audition for The Echo Theater that was going on Wednesday. It was for what they were calling the Echo Ten Festival. Basically it was a bunch of shows that were short 10-15 minute plays that were written by all sorts of directors from all sorts of places. I guess they originally had 69 people submit shows and came down to just 17. They needed us actors to come down, cold read for a few shows and then if the directors wanted to get more out of us they could ask us to read their pieces after. The show was also opening in a week and a half and only running for that Thursday and Friday unless the audience liked your show so much that they voted you through to the Saturday showing of the best shows. So I decided to talk to my fiance and make sure that it was ok to audition and went down and tried out. I'm not the best cold reader nor do I think that I'm very good at straight plays. Which are non musicals, you have to rely on your emotions in the scenes and being able to portray the message with words and movement rather then music and dance. Which I don't think I have ever been very good at. But I figured what's to lose? It's a fairly new theater that hasn't gotten quite that much exposure yet and could use the actors. I went and auditioned for my friend Critters show. He was directing Adam and Eve.  There wasn't many people at the audition and I was kinda worried how things would pan out. Reading was fun though, I read with some young lady that I don't think got called back to be in any of the shows because I didn't see her at the first meeting. Everyone seemed to like my read and I was asked by a couple of the other directors to read their plays as well. I was kinda really hoping for Adam and Eve, but I read the others just as best I could. We waiting around for other people to show up and another guy walked in and read one of the plays that was more of an angry one. I got worried though because the moment after he got done reading, 3 of the directors that were there wanted him to read for their show, including Critter for Adam and Eve. So I got up and left before he read that, cause I didn't want to hear or see him read it better than me. Also the woman that I worked with in Christmas Carol that made it such a horrible experience was there, and she tried to be all nice and full of crap towards me but oh well. I was hopeful that I wouldn't be cast in the same show as her. They had another day of auditions that weekend, which worried me again, cause it sounded like they had a lot more people lined up for that day. So I kinda just sat around and waited over the weekend to see what was going to happen with the show. I got a text from one of the directors that asked me to read after I read Critters play. She wanted me to play a medic in her show called Trenchman. I didn't really have any intention of doing that show, and actually did the cold read bad on purpose so she wouldn't want me...but she did anyways. lol So I waited for a couple more days and then I got a text from Critter. He wanted me to be Adam in Adam and Eve! I was so stoked! We started rehearsing the next day and I was going to get to meet the person playing Eve.


We had a read thru for trenchman and don't get me wrong it seemed like it was going to be a fun show, but I wasn't that excited about it as I was for Adam and Eve. They guys that I was going to be in trenchman with all seemed pretty fun and we got along great together. It was just a matter of memorizing lines and getting the show to work. Our performances went well but it for sure wasn't the strongest of the shows that were done.

We had planned to have rehearsals for Adam and Eve after trenchman. So I usually just ended up waiting. So that Monday I was waiting around and about 20 minutes after my other rehearsal was over this Red Head walked in. She came up to me asked if my name was Mont and introduced herself as Paige. She was going to be playing Eve and apparently was a good friend of Critters that he just called up and asked if she wanted to play the part. Critter got there and we got into it. Let me tell you something about this kid. Living with him I always knew that he was a great actor and had studied it in school and it was pretty much his love. I had never worked with him before except for 2 nights were I was an extra in a film that he was in. I had remembered him telling me that he had studied acting in Russia and a few other places besides school as well, but man did he put us to work. Lets just say that I have never worked so hard in my life for a show. Especially one that had only a week and a half of rehearsals. He took that hour and a half that we had and did all sorts of great things. Warm ups that are the best ever, running scenes over and over until both he and us felt they were right. We were 2 days from opening and we hadn't finished the running the whole show yet because of it ha. No I've never been in any acting classes or done any kind of special training besides my vocal training that I started last year.  So I felt a little inadequate because everyone that seemed to be a part of this festival had some sort of experience. A lot of the things seemed really weird to me at first and I think critter could tell. So we just kept running things until they felt right.

One night sticks in my mind and is kinda where the title of this post comes from. There is 2 scenes in the show were Adam and Eve each have their final straw moment. The moment where the other says something or does something that just pushes the other over the edge. Eve's was because Adam wasn't understanding what was wrong with her and kept pushing to the point where she yells at him to leave her alone for a moment. She starts crying but tries to not show too much to Adam. I guess I should probably give some back ground on the show. It takes place after Adam and Eve get kicked out of the garden and are starting to realize what they got into and how they feel. Also how they start realizing that they do like each other, and how to deal with starting a family and being the father and mother of all nations. Adam's "angry moment" I guess we can call it comes after Eve asks him if she wasn't the only girl on earth would he still want her. He being the typical guy and wanting to think about it, says "that's a good question" Eve gets obviously hurt and while Adam tries to explain his reasoning for that question she storms away from him. He yells off at her about how he is happy that she ate the apple and how she really is beautiful to him, he just never realized it until after...after meaning the moment they were kicked out. The play takes place literally 30 minutes after they were thrown out.

Now Paige was a natural at getting mad and being upset with someone else. She has been in theater forever and has taken some classes..It's also just acting so it's pretty easy at times for some people. I on the other hand had a really hard time when my time came to get angry. I'm not an angry kind of person. Especially when it comes to the opposite sex. I hate seeing them cry or feel sad or anything of that nature. Especially if it was my fault. Both Paige and Critter could see I was having an issue and what he did next kinda changed my perspective on acting and what I have been doing for the last 4 years. You see whenever I get a lead part in a show, I kinda would just go through the motions. Memorize my lines and my blocking what and where I'm supposed to be going and doing. I've never really just let the character take me over and make it my own. Critter wanted me basically to just sit and yell at Paige, and even thought it was just in an acting sense I couldn't do it. Mainly because I knew what the next lines were and how it kinda tears us apart for a moment. So he sat us down right in front of each other and had us just look into each others eyes. Not saying a single word until we felt it just naturally flow out of us. He didn't want us to yell at each other, just kinda look into each others eyes until we felt connected.To be honest with you I have never done anything like this in my life. The closest thing to something like this that I ever did was when I was in The Princess Bride and we did mirroring. Kinda the same thing but instead of just sitting there holding hands motionless and quiet until one of us decided to talk, one person does a movement and then the other one follows. Well we kinda joked for a bit, but Critter was pretty adamant that we just sit there looking into each others eyes until we felt each other is what he said.

I really had to think hard about this one. He wanted us to basically become one of those married couples that I always thought were so weird. They finish each others sentences, they can look at one another without saying a word and just know what the other is thinking, feeling, wanting. I also just felt kinda silly, mostly because this once again is something that I have never done before. So there I sat across from a woman I have only known for a a few days trying my hardest to just connect with her, in what I can only describe as pure love for a person. Now yes this is a theater project and yes I am engaged and very much in love with my future wife, but and theater people will probably understand more than non theater people, I had to find a little bit of that love for my partner Paige. She was a great actor and I felt like she was way better then me. So there we sat, holding hands and looking into each others eyes. Probably for a good 5 minutes before anything was said, and it all seemed really really weird to me for those few minutes. I'm guessing she had no issues with it whatsoever because she has done things like this her whole life, but it was probably awkward for her because I was making it that way. Then after a few minutes of her awkwardly staring into my probably looking back at her awkwardly odds things just seemed to click in my mind. I instantly calmed down and the words just kinda flowed out of me. It kinda seemed like I was having a conversation with my future wife after we had known each other for a really long time. We went through the scene and Critter was so happy that we finally had gotten to that point. We were only an hour into our 3 hour scheduled rehearsal but he said he was so blown away with how smoothly that went he just said go home. So I went home that night and kinda thought about what had happened. I think for the first time in a long time I actually saw myself as my character instead of a person pretending to be something they weren't for others entertainment. The rest of the rehearsal process went pretty good and we felt ready for the opening night. We ran over our lines every night before we went on stage, just to help us work on consistency and flow of the show and we got it down pretty dang good. We performed the show only 3 times and with our total rehearsal schedule the whole process was less the 3 weeks. It felt like it had been something we had been working on for so long though. Our show was selected to be in the final performance, which we thought was pretty awesome because only 5 shows were picked out of the 15 shows that were done through out the two different showings. We didn't win any awards but come to find out that we were nominated for best show and I was nominated for best actor. Something I never thought would happen. It made me feel pretty good about myself. But it also taught me an important lesson that I think I can use throughout my acting and my marriage. It is one that I am so thankful that I spent the two and a half weeks working for and I look forward to getting better and better. 

He works in funny ways

Well hello again,

It's been a while since I've posted anything and I'm not even sure if people still read this thing but hey, it's better then writing in a journal for me so I'll keep at it when I can.

I wrote a post a few months ago about an activity that another ward in our stake invited us to attend. It was during February and it was before the dreaded day of Valentines, so it was obviously a dating type of activity where they were gonna try and pair us off with people in their ward, and try to make the activity as awkward as possible with the games they had us play. Now I will be the first to admit that I do a lot of embarrassing things(not really for me, more for those that are with me at the time) HA and I pretty much have no shame, but when it comes to playing games that put me in an awkward situation for another person, especially someone of the opposite sex I can get really reserved and it just isn't good. Boy did we play those kinds of games. Kissing Rugby. A person of the opposite sex sits in the middle and has a member of the same gender protect them by kissing the person of the opposite gender that is trying to kiss the person in the middle...yeah...not my kinda game...yet these are the kinda games/situations that our leaders love to put us in for some reason all the time.

Needless to say I wasn't planning on going to the activity at all. 8 had rolled around and I was still nestled at my house doing some homework I believe.(probably not but I'll go with it, because it makes me sound better.) I got a text from a friend of mine about 30 minutes after 8 telling me to hurry up to the activity because there were only like 4 guys from our whole ward there. You see our ward is really close with each other. We are usually hanging out together during the week or we go on camp outs and things together all the time. For some reason though a lot of the other wards in our stake are not as close as we are at all. So we usually stay away from things like this. I had decided a few months earlier after I had broken up with my ex that I was going to steer clear of the ladies for a while. I was tired of nothing working out on both ends, but I knew if I didn't show up he would be a angry guy for a while. He apparently had been trying to get a lot of us there, because when I pulled up so did 3 of my really good friends. We all walked in played some of the really boring dumb games and were getting ready to bail when they herded us into another room to do a speed dating thing. They gave us 3 minutes to find everything out about the person on the other side of the table and when the ding sounded we had to move on. OH JOY 3 minutes to try and soak in tons of info about people I didn't really care to get to know in the first place. The thing that made it even worse was that not a lot of people in the other ward seemed very interested at all in playing this game. Our ward was going crazy with people in the other ward and they were just kind of like ok, whatever I will talk to you. I got pretty much all the way around the room, when I got to a girl that was sitting next to a friend of mine in the ward. We got talking and come to find out she was the younger sister of the guy that told me to come to the activity in the first place. We got talking and we had a lot of fun. There was a bunch of candy in different bowls and she handing me a candy heart that said something I can't remember on it. She looked at me and jokingly said "Here take my heart" So I did and I ate it. It was tasty. The ding sounded and we moved on, I got about halfway down the next table when she shouted out hey I want my heart back to give to this guy. I told her that I ate it, she was sad and the night carried on. She seemed like a really great girl that I wanted to get to know better. I failed horribly in trying to get her number that night because she ran off, as did most of our ward, right after the activity was over. So I had the night to sit and stew and think about how I was going to get her number. I also realized again that while I had told myself I was done dating, a person was put in my path that totally destroyed that thought and I was once again in the wanting to know her more phase.

We ended up hanging out a few times at FHE and much to the then dismay of her older brother who I was friends with got her number. We started talking and I found out how old she was. 19 :( Why couldn't there be any girls in the ward that were somewhat near my age that were interested in dating? Oh well I thought, I asked her out and it was kind of a roller coaster from there. I found out later down the road that her dad and of course older brother were against me going out with her because of the age difference. I've got 8 years on her and I could see their worry at that time. Her mom though believed in her daughters judge of character and was ok with the date. We had a great time, went to dinner and went and saw Comedy Sportz which is a fun improve to kinda show.  We ended up spending the next couple days together and one thing led to another and we are now engaged! Pretty stoked about it all even though it's still kinda weird for me. I love the girl and she is the best thing to happen to me. Supports me in all I do and I know we are going to have a great life together.

I just find it funny that we met in an activity that I originally had no intent on going to. I'm sure we would of met later down the road, but what if things didn't go the way that they did? Would we be engaged right now? Or would we know that the other existed. I'm sure being in the same ward we would of eventually met, but she had plans to move out on her own soon for school and I most likely would of never met her then. Just crazy how things sometimes work out huh?

Speed Dating

Last night our ward was invited to another ward for their activity night. This ward has decided to invite one ward from the stake every month to join them. Another ploy for meeting new people and such, which I think would be pretty fun depending on the activity at hand. Ours last night was not the case. I don't mind them wanting us to get to know other people and such, but some of the games that they have us play are just ridiculous and put everyone in really awkward situations. When I got there they were playing a game that looked pretty fun, but since I was late I just got to watch, but they were all intertwined and had to get all out of the group into one big circle. Looked like fun, and turned out to be the least awkward game of the night. They next had us get in lines, boys and girls and gave each of us a number. We were then supposed to get in groups of our numbers and prepare for the fate of which ever weird game was heading our way. I don't know if there is a name for the game, I'm sure there is but basically we got in boy girl fashion, each took a tooth pick and were given a lifesaver. The rules of the game are as follows get the live saver from first to last and then back without touching it or letting it hit the ground. Basically we had to get as close as humanly possible to people we didn't really know at all and pass along this candy. My team won, but it was still pretty weird. We then played kissing rugby. Basically the guys are given a letter, the girls a number and someone starts in the middle, boy or girl. A number is called and a letter and if the person in the middle is a girl, the guy has to get to her and give her a kiss while the other girl tries to stop him. Likewise it's the other way for the girls.

They then took us into a room where we were to line up on tables girls on one side and boys the other. The basic rules of speed dating are this. Each guy is given an amount of time to talk to each girl in the room. Basically it's a really fast version of a first date.....in my opinion it's a pretty stupid way to get to know a person. So much info is thrown at you from so many different people at one time that it has to be hard to remember it all if any of it. So basically we just go through the motions. There were a couple girls that were pretty fun to talk to, but most of them just kinda sat there like ok go ahead....This is what I don't get, can't they come up with any other games that don't include us doing exactly what we do every Sunday? Just sit and talk. It's funny because our ward is so close. We love being together and doing whatever. Yes we have our clicks, but everyone is pretty chill with each other. We have all noticed that in so many other wards this is just not the case. Not always that they dislike each other or anything like that, but it's very rarely that they embrace other wards. Ex. When this whole putting together of YSA wards into stakes was put into play by the church they hoped that people would be able to meet get married and so on, because everything they did was meant to put us together lots more. Our ward was moved out of the building we were in because it was also a family ward building and moved down to a building where there is now 3 wards. One for the handicapped then 2 singles wards. We initially were put together and had church at the same time. The switch was that one ward went to sacrament first and the other ward started with classes first. We had a munch and mingle I think twice a month. This was all done to see if this would work. Not only did it not work, but we were asked by the other wards bishop to switch our time because they didn't like dealing with us. I just laughed at this. It was pretty dang obvious that their plan wasn't going to work though. Each ward was set in their ways and friends and hardly if ever talked to one another. Munch and Mingle was supposed to make us mingle and talk with one another, but each ward sat on one side of the church and never talked to the other. It's great that they want us to meet one another and all, but I think some of the ideas lack luster....basically forcing a bunch of teens to do things they really don't want to do never really works. It usually gets the exact opposite reaction. Which is what I have noticed a lot of in the last few months. I hope the dating world around here starts to change soon though. Either that or I need to find the club that is out there of people that actually want to get married. Instead of just hanging out, or dating everyone and their dogs till they get bored....Not my lifestyle anymore...But it's getting harder and harder to find a way out. Thus we will continue to do participate in the awkward speed dating games and forced love days...

Crazy Weekned!

Wow what a weekend. From the Superbowl which do to the team that lost I won't be speaking much about the game...I love the Patriots, they are my team always will be. They just didn't make the plays they needed to. The Giants got a lucky break yet AGAIN and had a few more plays then the Pats. It just surprises me how many fair weather fans that they have. I will never stray the course lol. Can't wait to see them come back next year with hopefully a better defense then this season.

Enough on that now. Friday was a pretty sweet day, work went on for what seemed like forever. We had a pretty cool ward activity coming on that night though. We were doing our annual Hockey game. The guys and I all piled in my car and we headed up to the game, what a game it was! Honestly hockey bores me to death to watch. Especially if there is no fights or anything like that. It's just back and forth with a little puck. I do enjoy playing though. Yes I know that doesn't make any sense. Everyone in the ward had a whole section of the stands to ourselves and we kinda all spread out. The usual group of us were together and we got all riled up, shouting and screaming FIGHT FIGHT...The mascot from the U was there and we taunted him like no other. He was making his rounds and got in front of us and tried to get us to cheer for him but I got a BYU chant going. It was pretty dang funny. The bird didn't look pleased at all. He walked off and we got back to the game. Well the bird came back like ten minutes later with a couple cans of silly string and dowsed our hole group. We all took off after him and he ran off. Good times. The game finished finally, we lost. The cool thing though was that we got to go play broom hockey on the ice after. It was pretty sweet! I've only played on the ice a few times without skates and it was pretty crazy. Our team won and it was fun. We all left and I went to bed around 2 after I cooled down a bit. Saturday morning I woke up pretty stoked cause I had a date with someone that I have been pretty interested in. This was gonna be our first date and she was planning it all cause she lives up in Salt Lake and I don't know the area to well. Well I got up on that morning ate, took care of the animals and took a shower, got out of the shower and had a text from said date. She had to cancel because she had "Work" Asked if she could do a rain check which I was fine with until I asked if this weekend would of been better for her. No response. I have learned from previous time being rejected that not hearing back after something like that usually means that she wasn't interested in the first place, but was just being nice..I thought I was done dealing with high school girls. Guess not.

So my whole day was kind of shot, because I had planned things around driving up there and spending the evening with her. Now I had nothing to do and was kinda feeling down on myself. I had to get some pants fixed and drove up to my grandparents to see if my gma could get them fixed for me. She of course did because she is awesome. We got talking, the main topic of course was how I need to get married soon lol. They were going to dinner with my parents so I decided to tag along. It was pretty fun. I saw my old partner from Christmas Carol there and we talked for a bit. After dinner I headed over to the Scera and got my ticket for A Night Of Broadway. I have a few friends that are in the show and a couple of them I haven't seen in a pretty long time. So I figured I might as well go. Besides what else was I gonna do that night? Also I always run into a few friends when I go see a show. It was a pretty amazing show. I have always wanted to try out for the show, but never did, but next year might be the first time that I do. I hooked up with some of the friends in the show after and it was great seeing them again. They did an amazing job! Also got to see Amy Lyn W. I have admired her videos ever since I first saw them and was so stoked to see her perform that night. Man she did not dissapoint one bit, she was phenomenal! She seems like a pretty incredible person. I just went home after the show and kinda chilled for a bit before bed. It was a pretty fun day, but I would of enjoyed spending it with my date for the night. Who I still haven't heard anything back from. Pretty sure that is done with.

Sunday came along and I was super nervous about my new calling. A calling from the stake is always something freaky to me. I got my first one before my mission. They asked me to be the single adult rep for my stake. No clue why. I was 19 about ready to leave on a mission and I was put in charge of keeping track of a ward of people that I never had even been to. About a 3 years after I got home I got my next one. DON"T ever answer your phone at 6 in the morning on a Sunday! Not a good idea lol I answered the phone and it was my stake president. He wanted me to come in at 6 I convinced him to let me wait till 7. What I didn't tell him is that I was up till 5 that morning with a girl I just started dating that night. I was called to be in the elders quorum presidency. Was there for 3 years...super tough but very fun calling. I learned a lot. So I was a little worried about this next one. I got to the church and we went into a room to talk. They called me to be an assistant ward clerk. My new job is basically to take care of anything that has to do with members. So that should be fun. Probably will learn a ton there as well. Church was fun, then headed to the Superbowl party. Party was fun, Superbowl made me sad...

All in all besides getting stood up on my date the weekend was pretty fun. I'm used to doing things by myself. I'll admit that it does take a few months to get used to again after going through a break up, but I am used to it. I really do with that I didn't have to be though. I really would enjoy someones company. Especially around this time of year. I feel pretty lonely during the month of February. I kinda go into my cave during this time of year, but that's for another day to talk about.

Belonging

So this post is kinda a bummer post....if you don't want to read please move on...if you do, you have been warned lol...


When I was around 7 or 8 my dad came up to Utah to visit his parents. He spent about a week here I think talking to them and doing stuff with them and all that stuff. He originally only planned on a weekend but for some special reason he told us that he was gonna be here longer. He came home one night and asked me to come downstairs from my room cause he had something that he wanted to tell us. He said that the main reason he stayed down there was cause he was looking for a job and a place to build a house. Basically in a nutshell he told us that he was moving our family from California to Utah. I remember going back up to my room trying to figure all this out. What about my friends? School? The Beach? Disneyland? Not only was he going to be moving us up to Utah, but he was thinking about doing it in I believe it was 2 weeks. He had already let his boss at the police station know and had already put our place up for sale. It sold in only a few days and within that 2 week period we were packing things up and getting ready to drive up to Utah.

Leaving my home down in Cali was probably one of the hardest things that I have ever done. I remember just spending the whole drive down here crying with my mom(she never has liked it here) almost the whole drive to Utah. It was so foreign to me when we got here. There was no beach, no Disneyland, no Seaworld, I had left my best friend and wasn't really sure what this place was like. I made some friends and a few of those have lasted a really long time and 19 years later we are still pretty close.

I write this today though for a few reasons..number one is that I really never have felt like I fit in here, or belong here. Yes I have made plenty of friends, but a lot of them have been through other people and usually don't stick around more then we see each other a couple times a year. I have been picked on since the first moment I moved to Utah. Something that was totally new to me and to be honest if I stayed in Cali and grew older can't guarantee would of not happened if I had stayed down there. All I know is a lot of it stemmed from the fact that my family was one of the first few to move to the area we lived in from Cali. The teasing and such really never faded away and still lingers some today. It's a hard thing to bear sometimes. I've learned to do my best to just brush it off and have gotten pretty good through that, but at times I just wish it would stop. Acting has helped me a lot put on a good face when I'm feeling down but at times I wish I could call out for help from those few friends that I have that understand.

I've never really felt like I belong here though. I have found that keeping to myself more than actually being with people here is what makes me comfortable, but it's not something I want. I would love to be the guy friends call when there is a party going on, or they need a guy to go out with their girl friends friend, instead of spending a lot of Friday and Saturday nights either going out by myself or just staying home. I would love to get married and just devote my time and love to my wife but I seem to be doing a pretty horrible job in that area as well.......It's not that I haven't tried, but after some of the things that have come to pass with the girls I dated, it almost just doesn't feel worth it anymore. I've got a lot to offer and I wish someone here would just see past the faults that seem so ever visible about me and give me a shot. I tend to relate better to girls that aren't from here, and understand the weirdness that this state can bring to outsiders at times. Yes I have lived here for longer then I did in Cali, but I feel like those 8 short years there I felt more loved and welcomed then I have in my almost two decades here. People there are so much more willing to accept who you are rather then change you. It's a lot easier to date there and at times a lot less stressful.

I guess this post comes from a funk mood I have been in for the last year or so. I have wanted to write about this so many times but haven't quite found the words to say. I dated a girl back around 2010 that was someone I thought was incredible. I was just never enough. She ended it after about 9 months, talk of marriage and all that. Found out later she had been lying to me and everyone around her for the last 4 months or so of our relationship. It really hit home for a long time and it still really hasn't gone away completely.

I met someone in a show I was in back in April of last year. We shall call her Mel for short. She was a pretty incredible person from the get go. She was young only 19, but she new exactly where she wanted to go in life and was going for it the best she could. She definitely made me super happy and I loved being with her. She almost made me forget about the other horrible person in my life and what she had done. The funk would show up every now and then but seeing Mel it made it quickly go away. Yes she had things about her I didn't like, but started to have grow on me and learned to love. Which I'm pretty sure that's how it is supposed to go. Time went on and the feeling of being not enough for a person and that fear of her leaving me( even though I know she wouldn't) crept back into my head, and eventually led to her breaking up with me. We started talking again a little ago and it has been really hard ever since then. A bunch of those feelings for her came back and after I told her this I found out she had started to like someone else. Well that totally shoots me down. Ya see in Utah girls and guys here have this thing were they like to date about 3 billion different people at the same time, until one guy proves his point and gets the girl, and the other way around. I myself don't do well with this, and I really don't see how anyone else can. Sitting at home one night while the girl of your dreams is out with another guy wondering how the date is going whether she is gonna pick you or move on to someone else, is not my idea of fun dating.

So I sat in my desk at work realizing I had messed up another chance with someone I could really see a future with. She is incredible in every way. I realized that day that I was falling in love with her and once again had to fall back out of love while she pursued this other guy that she liked, knowing in my heart that I most likely won't get another chance with her, and to be honest I probably don't deserve one. I guess I felt that if I told her about the funk I was in at the moment that I was scared she would probably get scared and run off. Something that she probably would of never done. Instead of telling her like I should of, I held it in and pushed her away even more. To the point now that she treats me like someone that she just met or never really knew in the first place. It pretty much sucks. I guess we live and let learn but I would really like to stop learning and get to experience all the joy and happiness of having that special someone in your life and knowing that you belong somewhere instead of being in this lost state that I feel like I can't really get out of. I wish the best of luck to her and all her endeavors and hope that she finds that guy that treats her like the princess that she is, instead of the way I tried so hard to avoid but got pulled into. I'm way sorry for that btw.

I've decided to give up on dating for a while. Yes I'm 27 and need to get on the bandwagon, but I feel like I need to learn how to not screw things up. Which is something I do a lot of now. I really hate being alone, but I would rather be alone then alone feeling crushed for another missed opportunity.

Deer Hunt

So this years deer hunt was a blast! Well all deer hunts are great fun, but this one was ever better! Mainly because this year I actually got a deer! All by myself. You see Mr. Mont Connell here has had some issues with hunting and actually succeeding at it. I've shot 2 big game animals in my 10 or so years hunting. I got my first deer back when I was 16, and an antelope 2 years ago. Those were great hunts, but the deer hunt was starting to get pretty dang frustrating.

So this year the group decided we were gonna try an area that they had tried a few years back when I didn't have a tag that somewhat worked out for them. Man was I not excited about this area lol. Mainly because it was gonna take a 4 mile hike up a mountain to get to this area. Oh did I mention that there was no trail to this area either? So we got all set up and ready to go. The nice thing is the first time they did this hike was at 2 in the morning, this is not something that they wanted to do the second time around. So my boss and I took Friday off and we met up at his house got the group together and headed up the mountain. We got to the parking lot at the base of the mountain and got our packs all ready to go. Looking at this mountain I thought to myself and said what the crap did I just get myself into? This was gonna be all straight up. Crazy! I was reassured that there is a good chance that there will be some good size bucks up this high. So off we went. Man it was a long hike. Took us about 4 hours to get up the mountain and find a decent flat spot to camp in the trees away from the elements. We found a good place set up camp and our beds, which were pine leaves thrown on the ground for a bed cushion and a tarp. Pretty dang awesome. Then we decided to go scout around some. There was a pretty lake off to one side that was surrounded by a huge cliff. Yeah most likely will not be trying to shoot something off that side. We did see a buck down in that valley though. On the side where we were hunting just before nightfall we did see a few dozen deer with a few bucks in the mix. What we were hoping would happen in the morning is that the hunters that were on four wheelers or walking around would push the deer our way up over the top and right down the mountain right past us. From the deer that we had seen running around we were pretty hopeful for the next day. We got back to camp built a small fire and mad dinner and just chilled by the fire till we all got tired enough to sleep. Not much you can do on the top of a mountain at night so we went to bed pretty dang early around 9. Which is no problem since we would be waking up around 530 6 to get ready and set. We were in bear country and I had a pistol with me in my sleeping bag just in case. The guys all had their rifles loaded as well. I've always found it hard to sleep the night before the hunt cause I get way too excited. That night was no exception. I also thought a bear was in camp. Scared the crap out of me. I was awoken by something bumping into my leg then bumping my head. Well bears do that to see what it is and if it's alive or not. So I tried to stay as still as I could, cause I could hear deep breathing and was like well this just made the hunt a lot more interesting.......being attacked by a bear the night before has gotta be some sort of record on the list of crappy stuff to happen to someone while hunting list. I was about ready to look out to see what it was and point my gun and shoot a few rounds, when I realized what it was. I was sleeping next to my friends dad Keith and I was facing him. He moved and hit me and he snores like a beast. So I told him in the morning and we all laughed about it. We got up in the wee hours of the morning and started our hike up to our spots. Gerard and me were going up higher and the other 3 were gonna head straight out and wait by some trees. We got set and within about 20 minutes of the opening day of the hunt we saw our first deer head over the hill. All does. A few minutes later another group came up, the 3rd deer back was a buck! So I tried to get all things ready but we were on a weird angled hill and the deer wouldn't stop moving. So by the time I got ready they were too far away. So we sat for another hour or so looking at does and birds when I heard something rustling in the trees next to me. So I figured I would keep my eye on that spot for a while. Well after about 30 minutes a deer stepped out with it's head down eating some grass. I kept my eye on it seeing as it was only about 50 yards from me. It finally lifted his head to take a look around and it was a buck! A nice 4 point. So I took aim at it to make sure it was and told Gerard to take aim as well. Well that was a huge mistake....I turned around got my sights on him again. He had no clue we were there. I was ready to take my perfect broad side 50 yard shot on a nice buck. Had my finger on the trigger, held my breath, started the pull and the deer fell over. My heart sank. Here I was seconds away from taking the biggest deer I've had a chance to shoot at and I missed my chance. Keith noticed the buck way before we did and was watching it and was worried that it was gonna get away so he took the shot. Which is great! He got a really nice one. I was worried though. That shot was probably heard through the whole canyon and it would be a long time before another group came by. Or so we thought.

After about waiting for another 10 minutes or so and watching Keith make his way to a buck which had fallen down a small cliff, Gerard and I saw two deer come up over the top and stop between two trees. We couldn't tell what they were with our eyes cause they were about 420 yards away so I got set just in case and Gerard took a looksie. All of the sudden I hear they are both bucks! They were both 2 points, but the one in the back was bigger. I was excited! But also pretty dang freaked out. I had never taken any animal from farther then 220 yards. So even though I believed in myself that I could make the shot, I wasn't having my hopes up. The nice thing is that on the way up I told Gerard that I was willing to take any deer, he offered to help if I needed it. So I had him as a back up. This all went through my mind within about 30 seconds. I got ready took the safety off, braced myself, breathed then held it put my finger on the trigger, got the distance and wind and took a shot...................bang! The deer took off and the stopped another 10 feet from where it was. I shot below about and inch. So I put another round in and shot again.......Bang! High I hear...crap! This buck was not getting away. The other 2 point had already taken off was long gone, but for some reason this deer couldn't figure out where the bullets were coming from so he just stood still after running off a few feet. Ok I thought to myself. First shot was low second one was high aim in between those two spots and shoot again. Bang! Thud........That noise is always a great one...and a scary one. We looked at where the buck was and he was no longer there.....Did I hit him? Did I make the 420 yard shot? Gerard confirmed that he also couldn't see the deer. So I put in three more rounds and took off towards where he was. That walk took and seemed like forever! I really had no idea how big he was cause I just saw horns and put my cross-airs on a body. I didn't know if he actually was down, or just wounded and running. I got up to where I thought he would be and there he was just sitting down. I did wound him. Which made me sad. So I got set put in another round and got ready to fire...He saw me got up and tried to run. Bang! Hit, still going, another round bang! He ran a few more feet and fell. The adrenaline and excitement that ran through my body is something I can't describe. When I came up on him I got a view of how big he really was. He was a monster two genetic two point. What does that mean you ask? Well a buck will lose it's antlers after the rut each year. They grow back a few months later and will always grow back different. What was a huge 5 point one year could be a spike the next. It just depends. A genetic buck means that they grow the same points every year but they just get bigger and bigger. Which could actually be a good thing for breeding if the buck was a good size deer, but seeing as this was a two point he was just gonna produce more two points. Which could be cool, but from a hunting perspective not so great. So apparently I was doing justice to the population.

I got up to my buck and poked him with a stick to make sure he was done. I then jumped up in the air and gave the sign that he was done! Ah man I was so happy. Suddenly all that climbing and hiking was worth it and my 7 year stint without a buck was done. I had a huge buck. He was fat and had some really pretty antlers. Keith made his way up and said that was the biggest two point he had ever seen. We got to work boning out the deer and packing him up, then headed over to Keith's animal which was also a big bodied buck. We had tons of meat coming our way. We got back to camp and sat everything down, ate and took a nap. Time came to take the long trek back down and man was I not excited about this part. my pack alone now went from just weighing maybe 30 pounds to almost 90. Going straight downhill with no trail and a huge pack was gonna be killer. The hike only took us an hour and a half but it felt like forever...That thing weighed so much and I have never taken anything like that down a mountain. We got back though and got ready to go. I still couldn't believe I had gotten my deer withing the first maybe 4 hours of the opening day. It was so worth the climb we had to do to get our deer. The group went back up there later in the next week and we ended up filling 8 of 10 tags that we had. It was a great hunt.

Crazyness

They are great days aren't they? This one for some reason hit me pretty good. I was thinking a lot about a lot of different things and I'm pretty sure that those things are still all jumbled up in a huge mess in my brain, but we are gonna try to get them out in a way that makes some sort of sense to me and those of you that read this.

The last couple weeks o so have been interesting ones to say the least. Ever since I got back from Spain they have been this way. Not sure why, but I have been in a more pensive mood then before and these last couple weeks have been good for that with some of the things that have gone down.

I got a text about 3 weeks ago from a friend of mine that directed me in a show almost 2 years ago now. The show that she had gotten cast in was looking for someone to fill in a role and she wanted to know if I wanted in to give it a shot. I can't really ever turn down a role that sounds somewhat interesting, so I went down to UVU where they practice and they had me run a scene with them, so I ran the scene and got the part. My guess is because they just really needed someone to fill in for the part so the show could get going. I know that I am somewhat talented, but I also know I tend to be the guy they just call when they need someone to fill in a spot. I got the script and headed home to look it over. The show was opening in about a week and a half and I need to see exactly what I had just gotten myself into. Well I opened the script and was kinda blown away by the amount of lines I had to memorize, along with a huge monologue that I had to get down pact as well. Needless to say rehearsals kinda went pretty slow and as we got to the moments where we moved to the new stage a lot of us were pretty worried about how the show was going to go. It also rained on us and was freezing cold the whole week, so that was gonna suck. We got to opening night and of course it rained and was butt cold. It was the same on Saturday and Monday nights as well. Surprisingly though the show went really well those days as it did the rest of the run. We had a lot of funny moments and it was a good time. We had some of the usual drama that shows have but all in all it was a pretty good time. Even the writer of the show showed up to a few performances and after one sat us all down and talked to each one of us. Told us what he liked about our performances as an actor and what he liked about how we portrayed his characters.

We had a stake football tournament during this run and it was a blast! Basically it consisted of one day and it was single loss elimination. The rules are kinda lame, no blocking with your hands, no running behind your teammates when you have the ball and lots of other dumb ones. You have to have at least 4 girls on the field at all times and they have to touch the ball at least once in a series of downs. Emails were sent out to all that wanted to play and we had a couple of practices before our games. Friday they played, I couldn't go cause of opening night, and we won. Sounds like that game didn't really matter cause all the teams that loss were there on Saturday as well. We had a really good turnout for the games, I think only one team had more then we did show up. I misses the first game because it was at like 8 in the morning and I wanted to sleep in some. We won that game and advanced on. After you played a game you would wait about an hour and then you would play the next game, so I showed up for the next game and was there the rest of the day. It was a blast! Our girls were amazing! They played so well. We ended up sweeping the whole tournament. We had one game that was pretty close, but other then that we blew everyone away. I guess it helps to have a bunch of players on our team that played football and rugby in high school and college lol. All in all it has been a pretty good last couple weeks.

Conference Weekend

Last time conference went around I was in a pretty bad place. Things just went south with someone really special to me(one sided here) and I kinda didn't really want to do much for conference or even watch it. It had brought a lot of bad memories back to me for some reason.

Well this time around I tried not to think about it too much. I woke up at the butt crack of dawn cause we had football practice and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Met some really cool people and even came away with a knock down and some gashes on my legs. Most of us then headed to our bishops house for breakfast and to watch the first session of conference that morning. I was sitting next to some new friends just talking about each other when I got a text message on my phone. It was from an old friend of mine that was right there with me through a lot of the downs of that last relationship(sorry for those times).... The message just plain and simple said will this conference be better for you then the last one? I was confused for a bit then remembered what she was talking about. So that was kinda my motto for this time around. I was going to make it a better one, as a matter of a fact the best one I have had in a long time.

The day was off to a great start. I didn't stay too long after a few people left cause I had some things to take care of before Priesthood session. So I listened to it in my car on the way home and sat and watched once I got there. I then headed up to Sandy to pic up a few of the things that I needed that day. Ended up picking up a few more things then I needed but it worked out. Went home and set those up as well. Watched the next session or as much of it as I could while I went over lines for my new show. Priesthood session is probably my favorite session out of all of them. The talks seem to always be directed at me. Or at least a few of them do. There was a couple through the whole 2 days that really impacted me. After we ate as a group for priesthood some of us met up and headed down to thanksgiving point for a turn on there haunted mazes and such. Those were way fun. Made some new friends that night too. Sunday was just a relaxing day of going over lines watching conference and learning a thing o two I didn't know before about our savior. Sure do love the guy.

I thought back to what my friend asked Saturday morning and I did have a better conference this time around. The person that took 9 months away from me for nothing was still on my mind but it's more of a why was I with them in the first place kinda thing. I her and her fiance a few weeks ago and they just seemed so awkward to me. She is getting married this week and it just seems like another day to them. Like they don't care. Not sure about you but I want my wedding to be a big event! Anyways, I'm glad things went the way they did this October. I look forward to the rest of the year.

Day 4

Today was a pretty cool day as well. Woke up played games with Javi and headed to Baton for the parque de attracciones...Why it's called the park of attractions and not some cool name I have no idea. When we got there the place looked typical Spain...which is so cool! They have tons of random weird stuff that I love! We got settled in and got on some rides. The rides were all pretty cool but pretty short at the same time. Most of them lasted maybe a minute o less, but they were INSANE! one twisted and turned the whole time we were on it. One takes you straight up and then Shoots you in the air backwards. Loved it. My friend got a little sick so we chilled after that one and then decided to try a water ride...Did I mention that these water rides to everything they possibly can to make sure you leave completely soaking wet? The first one we did takes you right through a water fall at the end..Soaked. The next one drops you 15 feet into a pond...Soaked...But great fun non the less! I was kinda tired the whole day so I got bored pretty quick. The place was way fun though. What always interest me though is how different people here react compared to back in the states. People were taking off their shirst on rides, girls walked around in nothing but a bikinni, which I'm not gonna complain about, although there were a few that should of been approved to wear one before they did........but the people and rules here are so different.

I know I get ready to head home in less then 10 days but sometimes I feel like I'm here on my mission again and have another 2 years to go. mainly because I can't use my phone here o see Melinda, who I miss! Some days I just wanna go home o to a place where I can talk to her o my family. Oh well though, I remember the other night when we were at the ccm and realize welp those guys still have 7 weeks before they even get out of that building then another 21 months after that in Spain, and I feel better...horrible yes, but it works..Being in that building though gave me the feeling of the spirit more then I have anywhere else besides the temple in a long time. I missed that feeling. Being with the missionaries and talking to them after was just great fun. I can't wait till they get to go out and experience what I did for 2 years. Some days I felt just like I did today. I wanted to go home so bad and just be with familiar faces and places. Some days were like the other days of this trip, I loved being there and couldn't wait till the next challenge came my way. Helping the Lord find his lost sheep and letting him take my full self into his life. Hopefully they feel the same way...

Well until tomorrow night! After we go to a city I have never been to before! Super stoked for that!

Day 3

So I now realized that since I have actually been on vacation since last Sunday that this should technically be called day 6. I just don't care to change it...So day 3 it is. Today was a pretty nice easy day actually nothing too bad at all. I woke up around 1 cause I had to meet a friend in Madrid so we could go to a theme park. Well she called me from work and told me that she would prefer to go on Thursday cause she was super tired and didn't want to go today. Which is totally fine with me! Yes I'm on vacation and yes I'm supposed to be doing great awesome things every day, but think about it. It's not like I'm in the states. I'm in Europe. Just going out and sitting on a bench watching people here is fun. People here are quite hilarious actually. So I actually just slept a little bit longer and got up and ate breakfast. Javi came in and we got talking about his girl and how he was in Madrid all morning. His mom and grandma were in the living room watching one of their many favorite t.v. shows, los bandaleros so Javi was actually really bored lol. So I went back into my room to do some homework. Got a good amount done when Javi wanted to play some video games. Which I was cool with cause lets be honest people...the kid looked bored to death and needed to do something. So we played for a couple hours till his the ladies of the house wanted to watch another of their t.v. shows that they watch here every day. Which I was cool with cause I wanted to get some more homework done. So I went back to my room turned on some Home Improvement on the Youtube and watched till about 7. I was meeting a friend in Madrid around 8, so I had to get ready to leave. I asked Monica to come with me cuase if she didn't when the night was over with Jorge I would be wandering around Alcala trying to find my way home. So we took the train and then the bus down to Madrid, Plaza Del Sol to meet up with Jorge. Jorge is a really good friend of mine from a city called Guadalajara...not Mexico...Spain...His city was my second area in Spain on my mission. He has a family and a great wife with now 3 kids. Only one when I was there. We met up went out to eat and had a great time. Had one of my favorite dishes....Paella..love the stuff. Basically awesome rice with great other things. At the end of the night after a good conversation and 2 bowls of icecream, he took me and Monica who went to visit her aunt back to her house. I'm planning on staying with him next Friday night so he can take me to the airport in the morning since no one will be at Monicas place...she is going to Denmark Friday morning and her Mom doesn't really know how to get me there. All in all it was a great trip and tomorrow is the theme park day!

Day 2

Today was a really fun day. I'm still a little wacked out from the time change, it's probably around 7 back home which means its like 2 in the morning here, but because of the time change I can't really sleep well. Last night I slept for a couple hours, woke up, watched some youtube shows and went back to bed and woke up at like one here. It was nice. I got ready ate, caught the bus and went to Avenida de America to meet up with a friend to go see the sights of Madrid. Now most of you are probably thinking you have spent 2 years there, didn't you see all that already? Well yes most of it I have seen, but it was different this time. Before I was a missionary. Everything was planned and most of it all happened on pday. Which meant yeah during the week I would see it but it was on a time limit and so on.

We went to eat first at TGIF Fridays. It was actually a lot better then in the US(I got sick the last time I went in Utah and haven't been since). Then we walked around the city a bit. We went to the Palacio Real which is where the king and queen of Spain used to live. We went to the huge freaking church across the street from there. That was way cool and weird inside. Old churches are pretty cool to see though. Then we got ice cream. After that we went to an egyptian temple. Why in the crap they have a temple from Egypt in Spain I have no idea, but it was pretty cool. We then took off to a park and just chilled. That was one of my favorite parts of the day. We could just go sit down and take it all in! No being rushed no having to stop people to try and talk to them, we just sat and chilled. Which was really nice. Around 8 we grabbed the metro and headed to the CCM which is the MTC that they have here in Spain. It's like a mini Temple Square. They have the temple a stake center and the ccm. We went there to be fake investigators for the missionaries so they could teach us. I was kinda not really wanting to go at first, but when we got there all the memories of when I was in the same place that all the missionaries are now it was great! We had a good time with them and I felt their pain. They were pretty new to Spain and didn't speak very well and it brought back a bunch of memories from when I was there. It was a really neat experience though. It was also awesome that I went there but didn't have to stay! lol I love being able to do what I want here. It makes for an awesome trip.

I've been thinking about home and I hope things are well back there. I miss you all! Especially my critters and that person that is staying in my house for the 2 weeks! Miss you person! lol

First day

Well here I am sitting at my friends house in Alcala De Henares Spain. I finally got everything more or less set up and I'm less freaking out. Lol It's nice to finally be back with a good friend, but I'm not totally sure how I feel being away from home. To be honest it still kinda feels like I'm back serving a mission again and will be here for another 2 years instead of just 2 weeks.





It's late Monday here and my trip here was kinda crazy. My dad took me to the airport around 8 in the morning so I could get everything set up and ready to go with the flights and so on. We had a nice talk about a lot of stuff going on right now. It was actually nice cause it's been so long since we have had one of those. He dropped me off at my gate and I set out on my way. I've decided that I don't really like traveling alone that much anymore. I would really like to have a travel buddy next time I go somewhere thats far far away. I boarded the plane to atlanta and sat next to a guy that was in the army heading out for a tour in Iraq, and a girl that was heading to Germany with her family cause her dad was in the army. She was gonna be there for about 3 years. That brought back memories of the first time I came here and how weird it felt to know that I wouldn't see my family for so long. She was at least with her family which was a plus. There were actually only stopping in Atlanta to get her dog, then heading to Germany. I can honestly say I'm glad I'm not going through that whole process again. I'm only here for a short period of time then I get to go back and be with my family and friends again in a place that is familiar to me. Anyway I found my next gate and since I had a little over 3 hours before I would board I decided to just walk around. It's always a bit of a culture shock when you get out of Utah. Even though I'm the least Utahn Utahn there is out there, sometimes you just forget what it's like outside of the bubble. I sat down at a table just wanting to watch the game that was on and I got asked for my Id multiple times which I always think is funny. They always look at my age and are like no way!





The time finally came for me to leave the U.S. for a couple weeks and I boarded the plane. I sat next to a nice guy from Texas that was taking his family over to visit a brother that he hasn't seen in a long time. We talked it up some about Spain and what we had hoped to do while we are here. His family and him from what it sounded like during our conversation are leaving the same time I do Saturday morning next week. So I'm sure I will be seeing them again when I get ready to go home. The flight over was kinda crazy long. I forgot how bad it was. Luckily I was in a window seat and had some decent leg room for the almost 9 hour flight. I alway love going over the ocean though I remember the first time I came here, when we all saw that it was total darkness outside but yet could see sun in the horizon. It was just as cool this time. I've had my doubts about coming here(I didn't really wanna leave on other trip so soon, but I think that was just the nerves getting to me. We landed and it was on! and by it was on I mean I got lost in a huge airport in a foreign country for almost 3 hours, my ticket said I would be dropped off in terminal 2 so I told my friend that was coming to get me that, that's where I would be. Well they dropped me off in terminal 1, which isn't totally far away but since it was a big place and I had no idea where I was going I did what any boy scout would do and walked around till I got more lost. Finally I was about to break down and just give up, go get a hotel for the night and get some internet so I could let my friend know where I was(my phone doesn't work over here) but I decided I would sit down for a few more minutes and see what happens.

Not ten minutes after I sat down and kept that little prayer in my heart did I find Monica and her brother Javi, well they found me. They had been doing the same thing I was. Walking around trying to find me. It was great fun. We got me a taxi and started heading back to their home in Alcala de Henares where I will be staying for the next 2 weeks. We got there got my bags set up in one of the rooms and was immediately feed by Monica's mom...Who I never actually got he name of, and I'm not sure if I actually ever will lol. She is a really nice lady who sat me down made me eat and then introduced me to the grandma. Who is also awesome. I kinda needed Monica to come home from work, so I could get my internet working, I mean it's nice to be here away from it all, but it's nice to be able to talk to people too. So I pretty much just chilled with the family for a few hours till she got back. She got me all hooked up and I sent some messages out to people on facebook and then we left. We met up with a friend of hers and went and ate some tapas, which is basically just a fancy word for food you get at a bar. It was actually really good! I knew the friend Mariana before when I was here for my mission, but it was a little different this time. I got to give besos which is something I will have to get used to but oh well. After we ate we talked some till she had to leave, Monica and I walked around for a while just talking and trying to figure out what I'm gonna do the rest of my time here. She is leaving on the 16 to go to a conference in Denmark so I will kinda be on my own for a day here. Which isn't too bad at all. It actually looks like I will be spending a lot of the time here with her. Which will be way nice, cause I was worried that I would be by myself a lot. Which I'm ok with, but not totally ok with when I'm in a different country. So I'm happy for that. Then We came home and here I am. Writing about my day.

I'll have to be honest though, I was really looking forward to this trip till the last couple days and especially when I was on the plane. I'm not totally sure why, but I kinda felt like I was leaving a lot behind that I didn't want to at that moment. I haven't really been home much in the last 2 weeks because I went to Florida for work, and then came back for only a week before I took off again to come to Spain. I have a great girlfriend even though I don't really seem to give her the credit for it. I really wish she was here. I miss her tons and it's only the first day. I have my own place now which I really just enjoy sitting there and doing nothing sometimes. It's a nice change from when I was living with a bunch of guys. I really think it comes down to the fact though that having this much time on my hands is really gonna make me think about things I've been thinking about for a while. Things at home, my personal life, work and school. Things I think I came here to get away from, but they have come with me and I'm glad. I also think there is a bit of home sickness. I felt like a missionary again when I first landed and kinda didn't wanna be here. don't get me wrong, I loved my mission, but the idea of being away from my home for another 2 years kinda hit me hard. I'm glad I can now do all the things I couldn't do before. Well it's late and I'm off to bed. I'm gonna try and update every day with new adventures here in this great country that I have learned to love. Buenas noches!

Free Time

So the show I was in, The Princess Bride, is now over. We ended on Saturday and I have no idea how I survived the whole thing. I got a message from a friend of mine that directs shows. She kinda worked with me in a religious show a few years ago till I decided to drop out, because the show wasn't going in a direction that I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to work with her more, but she moved to Park City. I live an hour away which is kinda hard for me to drive an hour up and an hour back. She offered me this part though and I couldn't refuse it. So I decided to finally give in and give the show a shot. Luckily we had a carpool set up so I didn't have to drive nearly as much as I thought I was going to have to. Only like twice.

Here is the kicker though, the show was going to be a total of 3 weeks. No that isn't just performing time, that is everything! So needless to say things have been insane the last couple weeks. Those three weeks were pretty crazy. Get up, go to work straight from work to rehearsals then the gym. Once the show started I couldn't hit the gym as much cause we got back way too late. The show was fun for the most part. We didn't have a stage because we were invited to perform at a church. So we used their like recreation room thing. Nice place just no stage, so no area to build a nice set so we did with what we had. Which didn't turn out too bad. The cast was overall pretty great. Just a few people I wanted to smack upside the head. The talent was there and we had a great run. Not too many people new about the location so we had some pretty small audiences but overall I enjoyed it. It made me realize I really can perform a lot better then I thought I could. We had literally 9 days to learn all our lines cues and what we were supposed to be doing on stage. That was kinda insane. I learned all my lines the best I could but still had my script with me for a few nights backstage.

The show ended last Saturday and man what a crazy day that was. We had 2 performances on each of the Saturdays that we did so basically we just stayed up there all day. Kinda sucked but it was fun. We saw Harry Potter the first time and the second one we just walked around Park City some. The last show while it was an amazing feeling to be done was bittersweet. I made some pretty good friends and I always love performing no matter how stressful it tends to always be. I just like being on the stage. It's way too much fun. It is nice to have some time to myself again though. Although I feel like it's way too much time sometimes lol. It does give me time to get back into my routine of going to the work then going to the gym and then whatever else happens after that. I cleaned the fish and gecko tanks and bought a new one to set up for some chameleons. I have two female and a male on the geckos and they have quite a few eggs when they breed and they keep laying for up to six weeks after the first batch of eggs, so I could probably start up a little breeding business and sell the babies to local pet shops. They would probably go for around 60 bucks a baby which is pretty awesome. I added some new fish to the tank as well yesterday. They are called African Moony fish, and are a pretty awesome addition to the tank.

I finally got everything set up in my new place as well. I don't know if I mentioned before but I moved. I know I only lived in my last place for a little more then 7 months, but it was time to get out. The guys were great but there was a lot of things going on with that house that I just didn't agree with o appreciate very much. Most of them having to do with the fact that I wasn't told anything wrong about the place when I moved in. Most of the utilities were backed up and were shut off regularly and I did my best to help the lease help pay for those but he kept not paying for them and letting them get shut off, then paying enough to get them turned back on for a little while again. Got really annoying, especially with animals that kinda require electricity for their tank to function. The roof above my bed also leaked and after many times of trying to get him to fix the problem o just stop taking a bath had failed I just got sick of it. The straw that broke the camels back came after he decided to make his movie in our front yard. All the other roommates asked him not to, but he did anyways. The movie looked cool, but it made our yard look like a waste dump. One thing with this guy is he takes forever to actually clean things up. O gets us to try and do it. I woke up one morning to yelling outside my door and went out to see this guy freaking out. The landlord had just dropped by saw the yard got really mad and decided he was giving us 3 days to move out. I have never been evicted before and wasn't to happy that I was being kicked out cause someone else was being a moron. So I started looking. Long story short we ended up getting till the end of the month and then we didn't have to leave if we didn't want to. I still decided to leave and began looking for places to live, preferable one that I could have all to myself. I'm tired of living with people lol.

I found a place after looking at a ton of them and started the move. Then got put in the show and the move was complicated much. I have finally gotten everything I need in the place minus a couch o two, now I just have to get rid of all these boxes that I have lying around. I really like the place. It's a lot of fun and really nice. Way too big for what I need but hey I love the extra room. It's a two bedroom one bathroom basement place and the landlords are really nice. I like them a lot.

Well I'm just rambling on again, but in the end it's nice to have some free time to be able to just relax. Kinda. I have been going hard for the last few months and it's nice to do just whatever I want and not have to worry about being places at certain times. I will be performing on Thursday with the Nashville Tribute Band and I really am looking forward to it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Later everyone!

The Nice Guy

I was recently talking with a female friend of mine one night after a rehearsal for a show that we were in. We were driving home and the topic of dating came up. How it was different in Utah(mainly in the Provo/Orem areas) then other places that she had lived in. It was interesting to get some points of views on things. She asked me why I haven't been married yet or even had a gf for a steady amount of time over the last few years. We talked about a few different things and some of them I would like to share with you today.

That talk left me with a lot of questions and I went on to thinking that night about girls I've come a crossed in the past, dates I've been on and the girls that I've had a meaningful relationship with. Also a little insight to myself, I love to people watch. It is one of my favorite things to do. Watching couples interact as they go through the day is also one of my favorite things and it has shown me a lot of what girls and guys alike tend to look for in the opposite sex and how they get it. It has also opened my eyes to a world of different tactics per say, in the way that girls look for certain guys and so on. Sorry ladies this is a post mainly to you, because being a guy I tend to not watch them as much, however I do watch how they treat you, and that is how I want to start my process today..

I remember one day in class when I was 7 a girl in front of me that I had liked for a long time. Gotta love those elementary school crushes right? She was a pretty great girl for a 7 year old. We used to play on the swings at recess together and shared lunches and all that gooey stuff that gave us cooties back in the day as kids. One day though she didn't swing with me she was swinging with the new kid. Well needless to say, I got mad and defensive and went over and pushed her off the swing. She cut her elbow cried and ran off. I know I was a little poop head, but at the time I felt pretty good for showing her how what she did made me feel hurt. Well I was pretty happy with myself till I got home. I walked into the front door of my house and my grandparents were over, yay grandparents! I loved seeing them, usually cause they took me to the beach. Well not on this day. My grandfather came over to me with my dad put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if we could go in my room and have a little chat. We got into my room sat down and my dad left the room. I had no idea what was going on. He then asked me about this girl in class and what happened that day. I was blown away that he knew about the incident. Turns out she went and told her teacher who called my parents. My grandpa then proceeded to tell me how that was one of the worst things I could do in my life. Treating a girl with disrespect. I come from an LDS family and we talked about how women are daughters of God and my grandpa even threw in that they are here to help us men become more like Christ. The conversation went on for a good hour(imagine my attention span at this point) and he left the room. Now many of you will read this and be like "really'? as a 7 year old this had an impact on you? Well honestly it really did. I have done my best to treat women like the angels they are and be that nice guy from then on. Sure I have slipped up, but I'm human it's bound to happen. Now that I am older and looking for someone that I can call my companion and wife I see that being the nice guy really isn't working for me at all. I've never really understood why.

Some of my favorite first dates that I have been on with girls is the typical going to a restaurant talking getting to know each other then go see a play, or some event. I love opening doors for girls and things of that nature. Call me old fashion but oh well, it's the way I was raised and its the way I'll stay. I've never asked a girl out on a date via text message so wrong that is...but that's for another day. Here's the thing though in our dating world today that type of nice guy has become very old fashioned and frightens a lot of girls away. Example; around Valentines day last year our bishop pulled a few of the guys out of Elders Quorum and took them into the Relief Society to have a talk. The 3 guys were kinda set up like a panel to be asked questions by the ladies about dating and what they like to see on first dates and such. One of the guys is a good friend of mine and we have the same style of dating so to speak. Neither of us get past the first date and our bishop asked why. He kinda put one girl on the spot that I had gone out with but never heard back from why she had said no to a second date and now avoided me at church(I heard about this after the meeting). She said that while I was very nice and treated her well, she thought it was too well, and that she didn't think that she deserved to be treated that well. Our bishop then asked for a show of hands of what girls in the room were turned off by a guy that treated them well. He was surprised that most of the girls in the class raised their hands. He asked the boys to leave then had a nice talk the rest of the hour about how that didn't make sense at all to him, and how they should look for a guy that does treat them like the angels that they are and to settle for nothing but.

I guess that is what this post is trying to get at. I've noticed so many girls "settling" if you will for a guy that treats them like anything but the person they deserve to be treated like, but because he makes lots of money, has a nice car, house, dresses like an male model has a great body etc. they look past the way they are treated because they have the guy every other girl wants. Now, I'm not saying the amount of money a guy spends on a date is the sole determining factor, not ever guy is in a position to take a girl out to a nice dinner and so on. But it's in the way that he treats her that will leave the girl thinking this guy really has invested time and sincerely wants to get to know me for me and not just get in my pants. But I've noticed quite a lot of girls that will readily look past that and end up with the kind of guy that they think they need to be with, nice car, money, house etc. and are surprised when this guy with all this nice stuff treats her like crap. I myself have been told many times that I am too nice or treat them too well by someone that I genuinely cared about and wanted to pursue a relationship with. Never understood that. I spent many a night at 4 in the morning in a parking lot with a good friend of mine that would come to me for advice on a guy she was dating that basically only wanted one thing from her. He treated her like she was the scum of the earth until she would succumb to his every wants and needs. I sat there for many nights just listening to her go on about him and how she should leave him. The next day message would be "Oh Mont, he took me for a drive in his Camaro today I swear he is the one" I would just sit back in awe and just wait for the phone call that night of can we please go talk about him, he did this to me. He never physically hurt her, but mentally and I think that the mental abuse a woman gets from someone she thinks truly cared about her would hurt more then anything else. So night after night I went through this with my friend till one night I came to her with a list. The list was a pro's and con's list. I basically asked her to write down what the pro's and con's were of the relationship she had with him. the con's list went on for a good almost page and the pro's list was all things that were worldly things. He took me shopping to buy a shirt to replace the one he made fun of. I then asked her if she could make a list of things she would want from the guy that she wants to marry. We both looked at that list and she just started to cry. Her boyfriend at the time had almost nothing in common with the list that she had made for her ideal guy. She looked at me and said well that's ok I don't want to get married yet. Well even if you don't want to get married why are you not seeking for that man that has all those qualities that you want in a husband?


Now what does all this have to do with Provo or our little happy valley? no, they're not on some reality show flaunting their goods. But it all begets a vicious cycle that the Nice Guys are caught up in. Nice guys don't ask girls out because they get rejected...and girls reject the good ones because they don't feel they are worthy of being treated well but say yes to the wrong guys thinking that is supposed to be the norm...so the Nice Guys get low-self esteem from being rejected all the time while the girls get lower and lower self-esteem from being treated like crap by the guys that are a dime a dozen guys. And the cycle continues. Now I in now way am trying to take girls down and make them feel like they are dumb or stupid or that they don't know what they are doing in their lives, rather I ask that they take a step back and look at where their standards have been and what they are now. Have they changed from what they were when you were younger? and if they have changed what is the reason for this change? Because in the end when we finally do come to that day we take the plunge and get married, we are the ones who picked our spouse. No one else but you makes that final choice to marry that man for the rest of your lives. So wouldn't you want someone that treats you like the way that deep down you knew you should always be treated? Or do you wanna wake up next to the guy that has it all yet you go to bed at night crying because of something he said o did to you?

I may still be single and looking but believe me when I say any future girls in my life and when the time comes my wife will be treated like a queen. I know without a doubt that I will screw up in my life with her and I know that all I can do to make that better is be a better man then I was the day before, and guy's love your girlfriends and wife's from the bottom of your heart, so she will always know no matter what happens in your life's together that you are are always there for her.

The Princess Bride

This show is hilarious. I first watched it on t.v. at my buddy Cams house when I was like ten. Loved it ever since. Just barely got the book from him so I could read it. I just love the story, each character is hilarious and the show just flows so smoothly.

Well as you may know if you read previous posts, I was auditioning for Hairspray to help out a friend that was trying to help out her director friend. I was cast in the show as a teen council member, but after a few weeks of being at rehearsals and stuff I started to really not like it at all. I hate the movie anyways. So I started thinking about the possibility of dropping out. I felt really bad about it though. I was one of few really good male voices that they had(was told this) and a good actor in the group. I also tried out for Singing in the Rain at the Scera Shell, their first summer show. It was being done by one of my favorite directors Jerry Ellison, so I had to try out. I love working with this man. He's been directing for 26 years and knows what he is doing. Also he doesn't pick and choose his favorites and puts them in the show. He goes off of talent and need. I was super worried though because this show requires a lot of tap dancing. Of which I have no clue how to do. Never done it before in my life. I tried out anyways though. Ended up making the show and my terror of learning how to tap dance started away. I told the director of Hairspray what the dealio was and he was ok with it all, he still wanted to keep me in the show though. Super lame. Long story short I think their show is gonna fail bad. I ended up dropping out of it. Still keep in contact with a few cast members from it, but have nothing to do with the show itself.

The reason I mentioned The Princess Bride though is they are performing it up in Park City at the end of this month for like 8 shows I believe. I was contacted last weekend and offered the part of Prince Humperdink! So stoked to be playing the villain in this show. Always wanted to do it.

Roommates

I have lived on my own now since I was 22 almost 23. I have learned quite a few things in this time. I have lived in 2 different places with many different people. I am now in the process of looking for a different location and this is where this post comes from. Here is a little back story of my experiences whilst I have been abroad so to speak.

I was out with one of my best friends Taylor and his lady friend at the time grabbing a movie and some food to take back to his place that he had been living at we were talking about me wanting to get out of my parents house and how I was looking for a place to live and how much is SUCKED looking for somewhere. He was the like "hey my cousin is moving out soon, could take his room"! I was like serious? That would be tight. So he sent me the info of rent and utilities and such. I was going to be paying around 400 bucks a month o so for everything. Not too bad. I had just started doing really well at my job and figured I could do that much a month and still cover all my bills. So the day I was able to move in was that weekend. Before I was to move in I got a chance to hang out with Taylor and the other guy living there Sam at a pool party with some of the girls at their complex. It was a blast we played basketball in the pool, which in all reality was rugby with a basketball. I left with scratches all over my back and some on my face from vicious attacks on my life to get the ball away. It was pretty much awesome. Getting to know Sam was pretty sweet. He seemed like a great guy, so needless to say I was pretty stoked to be moving in. On move in day, I pretty much after work put all my stuff in suitcases and then in my car that I wanted to take with me. I think it took me like 3 trips. Not too shabby. Sam was there chilling with some friends and helped me move up. I got settled in and all ready to live there. Went out to Walmart that night with Sam and basically spent 150 bucks on things I may o may not have needed to live there. The next day was Saturday and I was awakened by Sam coming into my room slapping me on the face and saying welcome to the apartment bitch...way funny. So the next morning I ran from the front door to his room and jumped from the door way and landed on him while he was a sleep, said thanks for the welcome and ran away.

Living at Lakeridge Condos was actually a really interesting experience for many reasons. I was suddenly thrown into the single kid college student life right away. On just our little complex there was tons of students all who came to welcome me right away. Within a week of living there maybe two, I had already fallen for one of the girls in our complex. Ok actually right across the hall from us. It all started one day when they her and a friend came over to invite us to the weekly fhe that they have there. Every week it was at a different person in the wards apartment. The two girls that came over were Josie and Jessica I think. Josie smiled handed us the card and was like you guys should come. Now Taylor was usually at work out of town all week at the job site and Sam wasn't a member so I was pretty much the only one that would go. I decided since Josie was pretty dang cute that I would go. I showed up we played cards talked and I flirted with her the whole night. She was dating someone at the time I found out, but she apparently didn't want to be cause when I was told she was, she overheard and said yeah unfortunately I am dating someone. Which basically was my go ahead to take a step back watch that relationship unfold before I made a move. I did and after being pelted repeatedly with water balloons after work we started dating. She was pretty awesome and we had a great time, till she had to move back home for financial issues and probably wouldn't be coming back. Sad day. Now she is engaged and doing well. So that was the first couple months of living there. Sam was only there temporary while he finished school at the college of Massage. Can I just tell you how awesome it is to have a roommate that does that? Even if it's a guy all the free massages that you get are basically the best thing ever. So he was going to be moving out at the end of the summer. Taylor decided to move back home to save up some money and we had gotten another roommate whose name we will keep as Jafar, because he was basically horrible. Never paid rent, had sex with his girlfriend all the time...weird......Sam moved out a couple weeks after Taylor did and we had a sad moment....missed living with him. We had WAY too much fun as roomies. Within the next 6 months we went through 4 different roommates..all but one were total morons....John was a great guy had a ton of fun with him in the place...not so much his son that would come over every now and then, but John himself was a great guy. The other roommates pretty much never paid rent, got some of my stuff confiscated o had huge legal issues that we had no idea about. Taylor then decided to give the lease back to the owner of the condo and he was a retard as well so John and I decided it was time to find a new place.

I started looking around for somewhere knew but as stated above it SUCKS looking for a new place. Takes way too much time to find anything. Then you have to go through all the application process and fees and all that crap before you can get anywhere with the place. I also had animals that I'm never too keen on getting rid of, so I had to find a place that would allow them as well. It actually only took me a few days to find a place to live this time around. I looked on KSL and everything basically cost too much for what I wanted to pay at the moment. Not that I couldn't afford it, I just didn't want to have to afford it. Also not a lot of places allow animals around here. Not even ones that are as well taken care of as the ones that I have. Oh well. So I had basically given up on looking when I came into work one day and saw on facebook that a guy I had met once was offering up a room in his 2 story house for only 300 bucks a month. Yeah I jumped on that one right away. Wrote him an email, talked for a bit on chat and set up a time to come over and give the place a look. He was wanting to get the place back to church standards and was planning on evicting the two girls that lived there with them. Ok sounded good to me. Showed me my room and I looked around the house. It was a pretty cool place and I decided that it was gonna work for me. Plus it was only gonna cost me 600 bucks to get into the whole thing. Yeah pretty much in love. Little did I know how much of a horror show the place was going to be.....

Over the course of the next 2 days and with some help of a couple friends I got all my stuff moved into the place. Most of it was all pretty easy...the hardest parts were Actually the fish tank and the geckos. Not a big surprise there. I didn't actually take the fish out. Just lowered the water down just enough that the big ones could swim around but low enough that it was easyish to actually carry around. It still really wasn't but oh well. I got all my stuff taken care of within about a week o so, met the rest of my roommates and started my journey through the house of stupidity for the next 6 and a half months. It all started out great, they were great the house was great and it was good fun. Then one night the ceiling started leaking on my head. I mentioned to the lease guy that the roof leaks and he was like "oh yeah the girl that lived in there said the same thing. I will look into it". Well what was meant by that was this. I will continue to take baths at 2 in the morning when you are trying to sleep and I don't really care what happens to your head o bed. So I bought some stuff to put over the hole that I saw and that worked for about a week. Then new holes showed up. Mentioned it to him again and got the same response. So one night about a week ago when my bed once again at this time 3 in the morning was leaking everywhere I got kind of mad. I ran upstairs with the other roommate and we banged on the bathroom door. Guess what? He was asleep in the bath tub. OH GREAT. Went downstairs and decided to just try and go to sleep. Yeah that worked for about 5 seconds. Ran back upstairs and pounded on the door till he woke up. Told him to that it was way too late for him to be a jerk and disregard what I had been saying for months about the bath tub leaking on my head and asked him to stop. He got out it leaked for a bit longer then stopped. Hasn't happened again since. YAY. It gets better from there though. Last week was the 4th of July weekend. Was looking forward to kinda sleeping in that Saturday because it had been a crazy week at work. Was woken up around 8 because some people were yelling outside my door. Went out and was told that we had a week to find somewhere new to live. Totally confused at this point...Went out to the front door and the lease man was just walking around freaking out. Here's the story. He had been making a movie in our front yard and living room for about the past 2 months. Totally sucked mainly because there was almost nowhere to sit in our house because of all the supplies and props he had all over the place. The movie was a zombie apocalypse so he had to trash our front yard to make it look like a apocalypse. This man never cleans anything up after he is done with it all. So our front yard looked awful for a couple weeks even after he finished the movie. So basically our yard looked like a waste dump for a couple weeks. Just so happens that the say before he was planning on cleaning it all up(he gets in modes like this once every few months.) our landlord showed up. Saw the place, freaked out and basically told us we had 3 days to a week to find a new place to live. REALLY? because of one persons mistakes it kills us all. So we were all in panic mode for a few hours. Our good old buddy Mr. Lease freaked out and wanted to clean the whole place up. I had nothing to do that morning and couldn't think of anywhere to go so once again we all helped him do something he should of done weeks ago. He always managed to get us to clean up his messes every time. Weird...

So with the prospect of being kicked out of my house on the 4th of July I started looking for a new place to live. Remember how I said that part SUCKS? Yeah this time around wasn't very much better. It's hard to find a new place to live during the middle of the summer. So needless to say I was kind of freaking out. Looking at not having a place to live in the next few days Isn't the best feeling in the world. It's kinda scary actually. Sure I could of moved home till I found somewhere, but I wasn't really looking to that as an option. I don't have a room anymore at home and what was once my room has all of my youngest sisters stuff in it because they redid her room. So it would of been a huge pain to get it all in there just for a few weeks o however long it took me to find somewhere. I have a friend that I had been talking to about moving out for a while and she offered me a room in her place and I was about ready to take that offer. I had found a few places but upon looking at them realized that they were either, not worth what they people were asking o didn't allow animals. Now I realize a lot of people would gladly give up a fish tank and return a couple lizards. This is something I really would never do. I have invested a lot of time and money into these and I'm not willing to get rid of them just to find a decent place to live. Sorry. I found 2 places that were ok with animals and ran to go check them out. One wanted 800 bucks a month and the other wanted 675. Both of these places had utilities included in the rent price, both were roughly the same size and both were basement apartments. The first one is on center street in Orem. Really nice location, right next to the freeway. When I drove up to it the house looked kinda small and I was curious as to they fit a 1050sft place in the basement. Maybe it went farther out then the house did. Knocked on the front door and met the girl that was leasing out the place. Her name is Clarissa and she lives upstairs with her husband. She took me downstairs to the place. It has an outside entrance, so I wont be bugging them trying to get into the place which I really wanted and liked. Once we got down there the place was pretty big and really nice. A lot of places to store stuff, 2 rooms and they were both good size as well. The bathroom was good size and really nice. The kitchen had all fairly new appliances and was built pretty good. All in all it was a really nice place for someone to stay like myself. Even more I was planning on staying there by myself...Which contrary to a lot of people I can't wait for! I fell in love with the place and was looking forward to filling out the paper work to apply for it. Got that all figured out and went home hoping I would be getting a call back soon telling me I can move right in! A few days had gone by and I saw the listing for the place that was 675. So I decided hey why not it's 125 bucks cheaper for the same kinda thing. Utilities included a basement place and allowed animals. It was a little smaller at 990sqft but it seemed from the pictures to be well set up. So I called the owners and set up a time to go check it out. I got there a little early, so I decided to just chill on the street in my car playing Oregon Trail till my turn came. Between the 5 minutes I had to wait 2 more couples came and went. This place must be popular I thought. My turn came to check out the place and from the moment I met the owner I wasn't super feeling good about it all. She took me downstairs and while yeah it was an ok place, it didn't come close to matching up with the place I had looked at the day before. So I took the rest of the tour and there was a few things I didn't like about it. Mainly the fact that there was no door separating their part of the house from the basement apartment. It was just stairs down to the basement. The place wasn't nearly as nice either. Rooms were a lot smaller and it was way too dark. Yes it is a basement, but even with the lights they had it wasn't very light. So I didn't look too long. Asked some questions and filled out a form just in case the one I really wanted didn't end up working out. I didn't want to live there, but it was one of 3 places I had found that allowed animals. The other one wanted a 300 deposit just for the critters and an extra 150 a month, there was no way I was gonna live there. So I filled out the application and just hoped that the nice place I liked was gonna call as I left.

The days went buy and things at the house I'm living at kinda took a totally different turn. I was told last I think Wednesday that a letter was written to the owners and they had now given us 3 months to find a new place, and most likely we could just stay there as long as we wanted to now and weren't being rushed out. The other 2 roomies had found a place to go already and had signed for that one and were planning on slowly moving stuff out by the end of July so at that time I would pretty much have the house to myself for a little while at least. So now I felt better about having to find a place so soon. I had some more time if none of these places worked out. I still was looking though, cause to be honest I don't wanna be in this house much longer. Friday hit and I was kinda getting worried. Most places call back within a couple days and I hadn't heard anything for a few days. So I was kinda preparing for the worst. That afternoon though I got a call from Clarissa saying that they wanted to offer me the apartment! I was so stoked! I told them yes and we met on Saturday to take a tour of the place again and sign all the contract and leasing info. I feel kinda bad though, cause that night I was also offered the other place and had to turn them down. It was a nice place for another person o family, but not me. So I'm really glad I was offered the nice one before the other family called me. I move out of my place on Tuesday and I now have my own apartment. No roommates, no random messes that get in my way. No annoying people over when I want to just hang out by myself. I can do what I want, when I want and it is going to be amazing! Can't wait till tomorrow to get everything going with this place. Time to move all the animals again....oh Joy.