Wii Love It

The Christmas before Jake and I got married (2009), I got a Wii from my family. I'm not a real big "gamer", but we have enjoyed having it around. Especially right now when neither of us are taking classes and have a lot of time to hang out and do stuff like that together. So here are some of our (or my) favorite games! They aren't in any particular order.

Game #1

The game that first got me into the whole video game deal. It does have a two player mode, and it is uniquely suited to fit our situation perfectly! Player 1 (Jake) controls Mario. So he has to do all of the running/jumping/attacking/etc. Player 2 (me) doesn't have a character. Just a little star on the screen. I wave that little star around to gather up "Star Bits". I can then fire these star bits at enemies, freeze enemies to help Jake attack them, and do small "non critical" things like that. Its hard for me to really screw anything up this way. So it helped me build some confidence and some basic gaming skills.

Aside from that, it's a pretty cool game. Mario gets to turn into a bee, a boo, a giant spring, all sorts of things. And each galaxy he travels to is different so they have a HUGE variety of things. I'd highly recommend it!

We finished this game a while ago, but we have an exciting new thing that is currently on its way being shipped to us.....

The sequel! Super Mario Galaxy 2!!! I'm really excited about it! We are expecting it to arrive at the beginning of next week.

Game #2

First of all, you must understand that I LOOOOOOOVE Indiana Jones. As in, I love it so much that not only do I have the original trilogy memorized, but I dressed up as Indiana Jones and went to the midnight premiere when the 4th movie opened.

So, imagine my excitement when my family sent us this for Easter:

YAY!! I was worried originally about how I would like the game due to my lack of gaming skills. But I have loved it!!

You actually play through the events of the first three movies! My video gaming skills have improved tremendously. And Jake says that I make up for any shortcomings with my knowledge of the plot and "what should happen next".

We have finished playing the "story" section of the game. So now we are working on what they call "free play". This means that we can go back through each section using whatever characters from the trilogy that we want, to use their special abilities and open up secret treasure chests, etc.

My favorite character to be during the free play is Marion - from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Aside from being my favorite "Indy Girl" of the movies, she can jump higher and farther than Indy's character and after we unlocked an ability called "Super Slap", she can kill enemies with a single punch!

Game #3

As some of you may have noticed, the Hollywood Video stores have been going out of business. We took advantage of this to pick up some cheap movies (some were really good, some AWFUL). Jake also picked up several video games. One of them was...

Basically in this game you play a surgeon. And you get to do operations! And its actually sort of realistic. Also, fairly accurate.

You get to actually "pinch" and remove things using your "forceps" (the A and B buttons, if anyone is familiar with Wii controls).

You get to stitch up and dress wounds and incisions. It's fun stuff!

I'll probably wind up playing a lot less when school starts again in the fall. But for now, I am sure enjoying it!

A Snow Day... IN MAY?!?!?

Before you read this, I would encourage you to re-read the date above this post. That's right... it says "May 24"... As in the END of May... When we should have sunshine and heat and swimming pools.

I awoke this morning to a loud cracking sound. When I came out to the living room I saw this:

Jake had moved our balcony garden INSIDE. For a second, I wondered why. Then I glanced out the window and the reason was immediately apparent.

It has been snowing ALL MORNING!

I found the source of the loud crack that woke me up... An enormous branch falling from the tree outside our window... onto a car.

Evidently this is enough of a problem that the University has sent out emails warning residents!

But... there are some enjoyable things about this morning...

A hummingbird sought refuge on our porch!! I didn't get my own picture of him, I borrowed this one from the interwebs. But we happily got to watch him for several minutes.

AND we made yummy cinnamon rolls!

I forsee that this day will be filled with cross-stitching, video games, tv, and lounging. Perhaps not so bad after all.

The Lamb and Wool Festival

Yesterday, we went to the Lamb and Wool Festival at

The event that most made me want to go was the DUCK HERDING!!

We saw duck herding once on The Amazing Race. And I got soooo excited! Because I love ducks!

The duck herding on the show was done by people holding sticks with flags on the ends... This duck herding was done by dogs cued by whistles!

Jake and I went with Jake's cousin Josh and my friend Sydney from work.

On the whole, the event was slightly less than exciting. After watching duck herding, we made wool bracelets and wandered around looking at the different animals.

I like that sign! haha.

I have seen many peacocks in my days - they let them run loose in the Omaha Zoo. But I've never seen a pure white peacock!!

We probably sat the longest looking at the turkeys. They are quite ugly. They kept all bursting into gobbles together, and they would puff themselves up like this.

We took some pictures at the little jailhouse while waiting to go on our wagon ride.

On our way back to Provo, we stopped by The Berkshire. I wanted Jake and Josh to meet one of my patients. He used to be in Josh's home ward and (like Jake) he speaks Russian. Turns out my patient was a Russian interrogator in Germany in the 1940s and 1950s. Wow!!

Balcony Garden

After a trip to Walmart, we finally started our balcony garden tonight!!

Here is the vegetable portion of our garden. We both thought that we remembered this box to be bigger than it is... so we will CERTAINLY wind up re-potting the vegetables as they grow. But this will do for a start. The back row has red and yellow bell peppers, the front row has "patio" tomatoes and pink banana squash.

Here is what I am most excited about!!! Our herb garden!!! From left to right we have Sage, Chives, Basil, Cilantro, Rosemary, and Oregano. The two pots that look like just soil have Spearmint seeds.

The whole garden! Herbs, Geranium, Aloe, and Veggies! YAY!

FIRST ANNIVERSARY!!!

One year ago.... things were crazy!!! Busy, stressful, the whole deal!

But it culminated in this happy day:

Our REAL anniversary is on May 16th. However, this year the 16th fell on a Sunday. So We did most of our celebrating on Saturday the 15th.

I am quite proud of my thriftiness and how I used it to plan a cheap yet awesome anniversary! I had a coupon for two tickets to a performance by the Utah Symphony or Utah Opera for $20.

So, I introduced Jake to the opera!

Utah Opera was performing two one acts by Puccini - Suor Angelica (a tragedy) and Gianni Schicchi (a comedy). So we got to get all dressed up and head to the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake.

I LOVED the opera! Jake wasn't as big a fan of the tragedy, but really enjoyed the comedy.

Oh, and it was the opening night of the show. And the tickets for where we sat were $43 a piece. We got ours for $10 each!!! What a steal!

We got some nice people to take a picture of us with the set after the show.

After the show, we headed over to The Cheesecake Factory for a late night supper. We had the funnest waiter ever! He was bald, and also the bartender. And he agreed to take our picture! The lighting wasn't the best... so this is the best that we got. But oh well!

We put our $50 gift card to good use. The portion sizes were ENORMOUS! So we brought home leftovers and a few slices of cheesecake.

As we pulled into the apartment after our night out, we noticed that Sasha's odometer had just reached exactly 150,000 miles! So, we decided to document this moment!

Anniversary Weekend Kick-Off

This weekend (Sunday, to be exact) is our first anniversary! We have exciting things planned for Saturday and Sunday. Since we both had the day off today, we decided to kick things off with a spur of the moment hike in Rock Canyon!

It was a beautiful day! Around 60 F, a little cloudy, a light breeze... PERFECT!

We found this little cave like area. I wanted a picture in it, so Jake told me to pose!

TA DAH!

While I wanted to pose in the cave, Jake was more interested in climbing up the rocks above it.

There is tiny Jake WAY on the top of the rocks! The climb took him a while, so I occupied myself by checking out the rocks themselves. My dad would have been proud!

It was a lot of fun walking along with Jake and enjoying the day. We're hoping to try to do some more walking/hiking this summer... maybe even throw in some camping! Not until after our awesome anniversary weekend though!

How To Train Your Dragon

Monday for FHE/Date Night/whatever you wish to call it, Jake and I went to go see....

HOW TO TRAN YOUR DRAGON!

IN 3-D!!

It was the first time either of us had seen a movie in 3-D. That was a pretty cool experience, although much more subtle than I expected. But fun. It was a splurge for us, usually we only see movies in the dollar theater. But the dollar theater doesn't do 3-D.

Here we are before the show in our adorable 3-D glasses. We were both surprised that they weren't the old school blue and red ones that used to come in the cereal boxes.

But anyways.... CUTEST MOVIE EVER!!! It was so stinking good! If you haven't gone to see it yet, I DEFINITELY recommend it! We both loved it. And I'm pretty sure I want to buy it when it comes out.

Mother's Day

This Sunday was Mother's Day!

No, I am not a mother. Nor am I expecting to become one anytime in the next nine months. But, here is my theory. If I am 45 or so and never had kids, I am still going to want Jake to acknowledge Mother's Day. But... where do we draw the line and suddenly say "Well... we don't have kids still, but I guess its time to start celebrating!"? So... I told him that we will just start off celebrating it and then we are never in that situation!

So, Jake made me a yummy dinner! Broiled salmon with a citrus glaze! It was quite scrumptious!

And he got me some daisies!! Because they are my favorite! And they are a potted plant so they will last longer than just a week! I can enjoy them all summer!

And... as often happens, the ward had flowers for all of the women. So I got another daisy.

It was a very enjoyable weekend. Hopefully this weekend will be just as awesome for our anniversary!

A Job, GPA, the Aquarium, and a Graveyard Shift

Well, Dear Readers of the Herrington Blog, it has been a while since I've updated here. Sorry I have failed you. In an attempt to make it up to you, here are A BUNCH of updates from the last month/few weeks! Enjoy!

#1 A(nother) New Job for Mary!

Since I'm not taking classes this summer (waiting to find out if I'm accepted to start the Nursing Program in the fall), I have been keeping an eye out for job openings online/in the paper and such. One day I found an ad for flexible part-time weekend work that paid A DOLLAR MORE AN HOUR THAN MY CNA JOB!! When I got home that night, I got online to apply and I am now an employee of:

I am a "Product Demonstrator". I'm the person on the weekends that hands you samples of yummy foods! Tonight, I even got to come home early. I did such an awesome job promoting the product I was assigned that the store COMPLETELY sold out of it an hour and a half before my shift was over! Hopefully this will earn me more shifts!

#2 End of Mary's 4.0 Semester

I finished my first semester at Provo College this week! Despite having a cold through finals week, I managed A's in both of my classes! Which made this my FIRST 4.0 SEMESTER in my college history! HOORAY! It also bodes well for my Nursing Application! (To be turned in next week.)

#3 Visit from Jake's Parents and Trip to the Aquarium

Last week, Jake's parents came out for a visit from Minnesota. Jake's brother, Mike, took Friday off of work and we all went on a fun trip to...

Although I've been spoiled by Omaha's Zoo, it was great fun! Especially to see Ethan and Emma!

The only camera we had was my phone. And the lighting was not so awesome in the aquarium. But here is Jake and I next to a penguin.

We got to touch a Sting Ray!!! So awesome!!! It was squishier than I expected! Although their tails are really stiff!

Jake and I at the end of the trip!

#4 Mary's First Graveyard Shift

I worked my first graveyard shift a few weeks ago. It was a rather impromptu thing - I was filling in at the last minute for another CNA. Which normally wouldn't be too much of an issue, except that I had never worked or trained on a graveyard.

It was definitely a night I won't forget.

We had several patients with moderate-severe dementia that required one-on-one attention almost all night long. Which made the evening busy enough.

One of those patients was a blind Hungarian woman who fled Hungary when the Soviets invaded. Unfortunately, due to her dementia we relived the Soviet invasion all night long... Which alternated between sad, amusing, and frustrating.

Around 3:30 AM, one of our patients passed away. This was another first for me. I'd had patients who died, but never before on my shift.

It was an expected death, and quite peaceful. I felt really privileged to be able to be a part of that experience for that family. To be in the room, providing post mortem care for their loved one and listening to their memories and sadness and joy. It was a humbling and sacred experience that I hopefully won't forget.

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