Hi Cod/'Allo Cod April 25th

Hi Cod

Ryan: It's difficult to think of anything undesirable that happened this week. We had such a great time--OH THAT'S RIGHT Arizona just passed SB 1070. Yikes AZ. We saw a protest and everything. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at the kinds of things people in government are doing down here since it appears from everything we've seen that all state business is being handled by a elite group of nine-year-olds using Dell laptops donated by Phillip Morris to access only a select few internet sites sponsored by the FOX news network. I don't know what's going to happen but I kind of feel like I'm living in Red China, and I mean super red (the caption reads: Take the traitors, spies and the capitalist Liu Shaoqi and kick them out of the Party FOREVER!). If I don't publicly renounce my preference for cane sugar soda, sans-hormone meats, sustainable power, making corporations pay to mine gold on public land and a curriculum free of Texan-intervention that something untoward is going to start happening. Of course we know nothing of the fear and horror of the days under Mao's Red Guards but the amount of specific power and instruction given to the police force feels dangerous.

Emily: SB 1070 is lame times a thousand. Not to mention having to talk about it with everyone at work who thinks it's a great idea. They stop talking about it as soon as our Hispanic co-worker comes into the room, though. Classic. Aside from what an expensive mess this bill is going to turn out to be, this week was great! So this Hi Cod is short!

'Allo Cod

Ryan: This weekend we celebrated our one year anniversary in Tuscon of all places. Em once said she was glad we were so low-key and I have to agree. But don't worry, we're finding spectacular stuff amid the mundane. First the music was great. The Avett Brothers played a great show and made me feel like seriously wearing those cowboy boots Em's brother Jared gave me. Rogue Wave on Saturday night was great too, the crowd was a little lame and took a little time to warm up, unfortunately by that time the room was also quite warm and stuffy, but good times nonetheless. Now food. Oh my goodness. We went to a French restaurant called Le Rendezvous and I had the most delicious salmon I've ever had. I might blog about the flavors there is simply not enough time right now (it's late and school refuses to start any later than usual). All I will says is that when I tasted the red bell pepper bisque Em ordered I may have teared up a bit. Glorious.

Emily: Um, everything is my 'allo cod this week.Work was good, home was good, and this weekend was our Tucson getaway! Tucson is like St. Louis, only much, MUCH smaller. But they have a shopping district similar to The Loop, called 4th Avenue, and I bought two skirts from a very reasonably-priced thrift shop. It called itself a vintage store, but was carrying an Xhileration Raincoat from Target. Is 2008 vintage already? The food was great all weekend; we ate at the Blue Willow for brunch, then Le Rendez-vous for dinner. French food for the most delicious win EVER. I've never had such delicious, expensive food. I could eat that red bell pepper bisque every day for the rest of my life. I commented to Ryan that my favorite foods from every culture are soups: Vienna=Mulligatawny, Mexican Food=Tortilla Soup, French=Oh, that delicious bisque! The Avett Brother's show on Friday was absolutely amazing, as expected, and as always. They have never let me down. Ryan and I dealt with a bit of disorderly drunkenness from two girls in front of us, but it didn't even matter. Our hotel (Hotel Congress) was adorable, albeit very noisy. Not much sleeping, but a lot of kitschy greatness. Rogue Wave sounded amazing live, and the lead singer, Zach Rogue, was delightfully strange and confident. Ryan and I had a great time. I would do it again every weekend if I could! The drive home after the Rogue Wave show was difficult for me, I'm a sleepy passenger. Trying not to sleep is hard. But we made it home, slept comfortably in our beds, and are quite content to be home.

"Saturday Night and I ain't got nobody"

Well...nobody delivering pizzas or anything like that. Also no one knocking on our door to give us money wrapped in chocolate. You know if you were a murderer that would probably be a good way to get caught.























I mean you're like, "Hey I brought you some chocolate. You should eat it. There isn't any poison or other things on the money so just eat it off and like it."




















We're pretty happy today. Conferences for most of the morning but I got me some new glasses.
I can't find any cool pictures of them because we didn't take any and the actual frames won't be ready for a week but I will get them up because I know you're dying to see them.




R

Getting things done

Emily has very quickly accrued a lot of jobs and they're keeping her pretty busy. But we've noticed that none of our posts on the blog are getting any comments so what I should really say is Emily has a job at Walmart and a job at Arby's.

Yeah. That's right. Her first job is just to mop up tears of all the people who shop and work there.

That is kind of a whole shift thing, but thankfully she mixes it up with tarp duty. You see occasionally ( and I use that word as playfully and flippantly as possible here) patrons of the Mart will burst right out of whatever makeshift spandex contraption they are passing as attire that day and it's Emily's job to rush in with a tarp to cover that which should always, always be covered.

Then of course there is the Breakroom disruption and overall morale managing (proof that getting a college education will take you far in life: MANAGEMENT!). It is her responsibility to make sure all games of Connect Four end in a tie, all rounds of Jenga end after the third turn and that nobody can turn down the television which is always blaring Judge Judy. But of course the bulk of her work focuses on following associates around and encouraging them to make their daily quota of 50 positive references to Walmart and the Walton family, whilst strongly discouraging conversations about their personal lives and things that make them happy.

WORD.

Her second job with Arby's is mostly just making sandwiches.



My job has been pretty lame.

Slayed un dragon with a marker.


















But I am hoping for some inspiration for my new book about keeping the buttons of your shirt in line with you belt buckle and the hitch of your pants/jeans. Our outing this weekend should provide me with ample opportunity to research.

























R

Can you wish someone a Happy Halloween in the Temple?

I feel something stirring in my tummy-town, it could be anticipation for the wonderful toasted raviolis Em is making right now, it may be the instant noodles and pickled cabbage I had for breakfast, but it just as easily could be determination to participate in our new initiative to write on our blog more often.

St. Louis family need not worry we don't plan on enjoying these raviolis at ALL! But we will eat them in the spirit of preparation for our December visit home.
I was going to write a whole lot more but this picture took to long and Emily fell asleep half-watching Sleepless In Seattle.

We played Racket Ball today. Yeah Emily tried to hit me in the face three times. Also she cheats. And Cheaters never prosper, as can be seen from Emily's eye tonight at 11:20. She was so tuckered out she went to be before me.

Halloween tomorrow. We made plans to have our friends the Stinochers over to play Beatles Rock Band, interspersed by bouts of terrorizing neighborhood children and candy eating.


(ps who does Paul think he is? No shirt, no shoes=Tetanus)

We're Americans.

Today we went to the Mesa Temple and reveled in the chance to get away from the stresses of this week and take solace in the peace and stillness of that place. As we were leaving Emily said goodbye to a woman she met today and after wishing her a good weekend she said, "Happy Halloween." We then turned to each with this face:


and wondered if wishing someone a Happy Celebration of Death, Ghouls, Spirits, Monsters (and for some reason a slutty version of every single costume idea you can think of) Day was appropriate as we left the Lord's House...

But then we remembered that Halloween is ALL about candy and we felt pretty good about ourselves.



R

Tis the Season

I've recently received a request to update this blog every day. While I can't promise that our lives will be exciting enough to constantly update, I can promise to try to do better.

First order of business:
IT'S HALLOWEEN! Well, almost. We have/are celebrating the upcoming holiday in several ways:

(1) Ryan celebrated his 28th birthday with a costume party! Ryan and I went as Jack and Sally Skellington, and we went all out. Ryan made a paper mâché Jack Mask, I made a yarn wig and my Sally dress, and we bought a suit from Goodwill the afternoon of the party and were literally sewing it together as people got to our house. Rushed, but worth it.
EXCEPT for the fact that the only other people who dressed up were our new good friends, the Stinochers. God bless 'em.
We ate strawberry cupcakes, we played Rockband, we played Scatergories, we watched Community and Parks & Rec. A good night all-in-all.

(2) We bought candy to give to Trick-or-Treaters, but we just ended up eating all of the Kit Kats. So, I bought some more Snickers today. Bring it on.


(3) We carved pumpkins in our likeness. Well, Ryan successfully carved a pumpkin in his likeness, I forgot to give myself a face. So. yeah.


In other news, I officially have a job, but a different job than originally anticipated. Read on:
Pt. 1: Job I thought I had = Full-time, one-on-one para at Elementary School.
-arrived to school after an entire morning of orientation only to be informed that the student moved to California over the weekend ("I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona!"--Lucille Bluthe)
Pt. 2: Job I now have = 3.25 hours a day, working with different students throughout the week.

Good enough.

Ryan has been sick this week, the details of which I will not elaborate upon. He is seemingly on the mend, and I anticipate a full recovery, and no H1N1 business. Phew.

I joined a gym that came with 2 free sessions with a personal trainer, and I couldn't use my arms for the next three days.

In closing:




Elementary School Fail.

New House! New Everything!

Arizona is hot. Dry hot. Like someone is throwing a hot, wool blanket on top of you as soon as you walk out the door. But, the heat aside, it's really quite beautiful. There are far more leafy trees here than I anticipated, and the cacti are very brightly colored. It's definitely different, but we love it.

The new house is almost completely put together. Two weeks isn't so bad, right? We got the kitchen, living room and bedroom painted, and all of our furniture moved in. Ryan put together our final pieces today: our coffee table and desk/bookshelf.




The only thing we need to do now is finish unpacking all of the boxes in our office/second room!
When it's all assembled I'll take you all through the house, pictures and all :)

Work-wise, Ryan has started back at ASU, and I'm writing an Arts & Craft column for Phoenix, Arizona's Examiner.com. I'm not making much ($0.01 per page view, ha ha) but it's nice to be writing.

Tonight I made lentil & brown rice tacos, which we ate with spinach, salsa, sour creme and cheese. Oh man. It was so good.


Yum.

Until next time!

Emily & Ryan

The Rest of Our Lives Will the Moments Accrue

Yeah, it's been a while. So, what's been happening in our lives? What do we, the Robbins, do with our time?

Well, ever since we moved to Utah I've been working vigorously on my degree, and I'm pleased to announce that I will be graduating August 13th with a BA in Print Journalism!

Ryan has been a busy bee working on reformatting, editing, and illustrating a Chinese textbook for ASU, where he will soon reign as supreme commander of all Awesome. Yes, I meant to capitalize that.

Yes, we're all work and no play. But THAT'S not true! We spend a lot of time at the lake skipping rocks, we go for a lot of bike rides, we play croquet, we play frisbee and we play Word Challenge on Facebook! Oh, and by "bike rides" I mean, Ryan pumps up my front bike tire, we ride around until it goes flat again, Ryan pumps it back up, and we ride home, and upon returning it's flat again. I NEED A NEW TUBE!

In other news: I'm not pregnant. And we're moving to Arizona in TWO WEEKS! Oh the joys of a new house! I'm going to turn it into a project. In between searching for a job/internship I'll be painting rooms, shopping for cheap kitchen/living room furniture at Savers, reupholstering chairs, sanding and re-finishing all of the ugly furniture I've purchased, and making lamps. Charming.

Here are some pictures of our past 2.5 months of marriage:

One-Month-Anniversary:












































Nikki and Brendan's Wedding in Wyoming:
Being married is great.