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.

SPAIN

So guess who is going to Spain for 2 weeks? This guy! I can't wait! I'm so stoked for September to roll around! It has been 6 years since I have been back and it's gonna be interesting to be there without being a missionary!

Ocean Critters

I'm sorry to all of you that love those land critters, I love them too, but the ocean life to me is far cooler then any land animal. Unless I could find a way to get a dino. That would be pretty cool.

One of the main things I miss about living in Cali, was going to the beaches and chasing after fish diving with them and playing around in the tide pools catching crabs and checking out whatever was in them. I got scuba certified when I was 17 and it has been a blast. I haven't had the chance to do much diving, but whenever I get the chance to I'm underneath the water. Last year I was in Mexico, and we went to the beach while we were there and it amazed me at how close all the fish were to the beach. As long as I stayed by the rocks there were hundreds of colorful fish everywhere! It was like a big salt water tank in your house. It was so cool. I tried to get a bunch of pictures of them, but the underwater camera I have is pretty crappy. I might have to invest in a new one soon, because seriously the fish are amazing! I did venture a little farther south more out to the ocean when I was in Mexico because I wanted to see if the fish got any bigger and boy did they! I scared a huge school of tuna that had to have some fish in there that weighed close to over 40 pounds. They were big suckers. The water got really dark and kinda scary though cause every now and then you would see some huge thing swim in really close to me then take off, and I couldn't tell what it was. So I decided to stay close to the shore cause I didn't have any scuba gear just snorkel and no knife on me. Plus it was a lot lighter closer to shore. I realized once I got back in I was diving down about 20ft and with a snorkel you just can't enjoy as much that way. I was getting tired of going down for about a minute and a half then swimming back up and going back down not being able to find the fish I was following. So I stayed close to the shore and close to the rocks, which didn't really matter because there were still hundreds of fish in the rocks everywhere! The only downside was that my body was cut all over where I was slammed against the rocks when the waves came up and went out. I had my wetsuit shirt on so that wasn't as bad but it still hurt. It was amazing.

There was the time I got to swim with the Beluga Whales at Sea World. That was um basically pretty much the coolest thing ever! Those animals are so majestic and so powerful. Also the water was butt cold. I didn't care though. It was just cool being able to be with them in the water swimming around and it's something I'm gonna do every time I go down now. One of my main goals in life is to swim with 2 species of shark. A Whale Shark, and a Great White Shark. I wanna ride a Whale Shark so bad! It would be pretty awesome. I'm also totally fine with being in the water with a Great White without the cage. Yes that sounds crazy to a lot of you, but who cares what you think this is my dream! Lol..

I don't know, there is just something about me being in the ocean that calms me down. Whether it's being around the hundreds of fish, gliding over the waves on a surfboard, o the fact that when I am under the water, the only thing I can hear is the waves going back and forth and me breathing. There is nothing else there. It's silent. Nothing but you and the countless fish and things that create an enormous beauty. I've always wondered what it would of been like for the first people to go in the water diving to see what they saw. To be the first deep see divers that went down and saw some of the deep sea creatures that look like something out of the twilight zone. I hope I'm around when the first Giant Squid is captured alive. I've always wanted to see one. I'm just fascinated by the crazy gigantic amounts of animal life that is there. Also the fact that less then half of the ocean has been explored. Meaning who knows what else could be down there. It all makes me so excited and happy to think about! I really wanna be a part of it all somehow. I need to figure that one out.

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend is always a fun weekend. You get together with family o friends and just enjoy Saturday and Sunday and listen and learn to the apostles and prophets speak from the heart about matters they feel important enough to share 2 times a year with the whole world. This year was a little different for me. Last year I was watching with Katie, and after we watched the last session we cuddled up to a movie and decided we wanted to start planning our lives together. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Well if you have read the last few posts, you all know how that went.

So this year I have to be honest. I wasn't really looking forward to conference at all. I never have watched o listened to Saturday sessions, it was just something my family never did together. I only started going to priesthood session about 8 years ago, and I loved going. This year I didn't even wanna go to that. So the time came to go, I got a text from my best friend asking me if I was coming so they could save me a seat and I decided because he wanted to know, I was gonna go. So I got dressed and headed on over to where my old stake center so I could go watch. Well on the way there I got pulled over on the freeway and got a ticket, so I was kinda mad about that. Priesthood is one of my favorites because it is primarily addressed just to the guys, on a few occasions they do talk to the women of the church but it's very rare. So its always nice to have something just for us guys. Well the main focus of this session seemed to be about getting married. Oh goody. Well after the session was over was when the texts started to flow in, "Were you paying attention" "Was this session for you" "Looks like it's time to get married" I just kinda laughed at these and was like yea I guess so. Totally thought that would be the last of the "marriage" talks during conference. Dang was I wrong. Both sessions on Sunday had I think I was 2 talks each about marriage and the importance of getting married now and all of that jazz. Once again the texts came flowing in. I went over to a friends house that night, but I wasn't really there I guess. I had way too much on my mind and I was trying to distract myself, but it just wasn't working very well. Can't say I was too happy to go to work the following Monday either.

Monday came along and I was doing pretty good, no one seemed to be bugging me about anything like that. You see I'm the only single guy in the whole office. Well besides one of my friends but he is dating someone at the moment. So the day was going pretty well up until lunch time. We all got to lunch sat down and started eating. We had our normal conversations that we do at lunch, recent events, sports and so on. All was interrupted when the chief as we call him looked over at me and was like Mont, did you see conference this weekend? Yes I replied, and he replied with well, what are you gonna do about it? and it started. The rest of lunch was all about helping me find and marry my wife, thoughts about why I'm not married yet and whats wrong with me in general. The same usual things I get at lunch. I'm pretty sure they all except for my best bud think I'm over Katie and have totally moved on. I remember going home that night and just crashing on my bed. I still have the first picture that Katie and I took together and I hadn't been able to find it to get rid of it, but for some reason there it was in plain sight. I picked it up and just looked at it for a while, we took it up on a mountain over looking the valley after about a week of not seeing each other. It was a really happy moment, one I thought should be kept, so I framed it. Whether she still has hers o not I don't know, but for some reason I still have mine. I could feel the tears starting to run down my check so I had to toss it away. I don't know where it went, in my room somewhere, and I kinda just turned out the lights and cuddled into a ball. I couldn't sleep that night and for some reason I just stared at my phone o the ceiling, hoping to get something from her, but of course nothing came.

It's not like I haven't tried to get married. To find that one person that will go to the ends of eternity with me and then some. I know more o less what I want and I go for it. I've been done with just "dating for fun" for a long time now. To be honest she was the closet person to that eternal perspective that I ever have had. I remember the first time we talked about it together, we both got scared she left and I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks, she popped up one day at my house and we decided to hold that off for now but keep it in mind. The first time I knew that without a doubt in my mind I was in love with her was on my birthday last year. She planned the entire thing and I had almost no idea what we were gonna be doing that day. We spent from 9 in the morning till about 11 that night together. I went over to her house and picked her up and we headed up to Salt lake to go to the Planetarium and the Zoo. Which both were pretty amazing. Then we headed back grabbed some dinner at Tucanos, were supper tired went back to my place and took a nap, then we thought about going to see a movie, but she was way too tired to stay awake anymore, so I took her home, gave her a hug thanked her for an incredible birthday and kissed her goodnight. It was at that moment that a shock wave went through my body, and I knew then that I loved her with all my heart. Little did I know that she felt the same way I did. I had always thought that I was in love with a couple other of the girls I dated, but it wasn't till that moment that I felt what true love is. Maybe that's why this time around it's been so heartbreaking and heard to deal with. Why almost 5 months after she left little things still remind me of her, almost every girl I meet is named Katie and it's kinda driving me crazy.

Back to conference, they had some wonderful messages that were given that really did strike a chord on me this year. Mainly Pres. Monsons talk at the end of the Priesthood session. He talked directly at the guys my age about it being the time to find her take her to the temple and be sealed for all time. I want so bad to meet that man, fall apart in his arms and ask him how do I do that, because I apparently have no clue what I'm doing. I've tried so many things, and all I end up with is you are a great guy and she's out there. Not to be rude, but I'm getting really tired of hearing all that crap. I've spent the last week o so since conference thinking about things and mainly thinking about what I'm doing wrong. I know that I have things to work on, and I'm doing my best to do that. I just wish I didn't have to do it alone. This last week has been pretty good for me thinking wise though. It has made me see how hard Satan is working on me in some areas.....mainly this one...and to be honest I have let him win a few rounds. I have let myself slip away in the dating world a do a few things I know I never should have. Those things have been fixed now and are over with but it feels like he is trying again. I wish I could know why dating for me has to be so hard, what I'm doing wrong, what I could do better o what roads I need to be on to meet that person that is doomed to spending the rest of eternity with me....lol I wish I knew why this time in my life this break up is kicking my butt as hard as it is. It's been close to 5 months since she walked out of my life and it feels everyday like it was just yesterday that I was holding her in my arms telling her I love her. Last night was one of those nights that I wish I could just crawl into a cave and scream away. I don't know what got to me but man it was bad. I went home after FHE and pulled out a chair and sat in front of my fish tank. Something about that tank calms me down all the time. That and my geckos, I love holding them and seeing them in their own little world in my room. I felt a little better that night, but woke up this morning with that feeling of emptiness, wanting so much more. I apologize to my friends who are worried for me, and have tried talking to me, I'm just not really in the mood right now. I don't know why I just prefer to be alone at the moment. I just feel so lost and alone right now and I don't quite know how to fix it. I wish she would show up soon though. I have so much to give.