Bear Lake!

Today is Independence Day. My wife is sleeping on the bed while fireworks are going off outside. We just got back from a little trip to Bear Lake in Idaho. We left on the second. We went up with my wife's family and and some friends. As soon as we got there we set up camp. It was fun to set up the new tent we bought from the camping store the other day. Its a three-man tent made by Coleman. My head and feet touch the two ends of the tent but besides that its cool. There were some Brazilian families there at the campsite we were staying at. A Gaucho named Junior was cooking Churrasco for everyone. We ate and it was delicious. At night my friend and I played the guitar around the campfire, we had smores and sang and talked.

The next day the sun was cooking so bad that we had to get right out of our tent. We had breakfast. They made some breakfast burritos that were awesome. We went to the lake. It was amazing. Really beautiful. We stayed on the beach in our chairs the whole day. Some played soccer. I laid on the beach and fell asleep listening to DJ Tiesto. Luckily I was using SPF 45 because I fell asleep in the sun. I ended up staying in the sun the entire day. At around 3 we rented Wave Runners. My wife and I went out, then later we went with our daughter. I've never seen her that excited or having that much fun. It really is so fun to take her out and do fun things. We've kind of made this a Fourth of July tradition to rent Wave Runners.

When we got back I was so tired I fell asleep in my chair at the campfire wearing my sunglasses and headphones. I went into the tent as soon as it got dark and slept before anyone in the whole camp. The next day we got up and packed our stuff to go to a famous buffet-style breakfast they have in Bear Lake every Fourth of July. We got there and there was at least a hundred people in line so we bounced. I found someone selling used books in an alley between two stores. I found three books I wanted and asked the price $1. The only problem was that nobody carries cash these days. I didnt have a dollar. No one around accepted CCs and they said there were no ATMs in the city (we were in Paris, Idaho). I got a dollar lent to me after running around everywhere and I was able to buy A Wrinkle In Time, by Stephin Hawking, The Quran, by Muhammad, maybe; and Go Ask Alice which is a journal comparable to the book Jays Journal which is about a boy from Utah and his journal entries about him getting into withcraft and drugs.

We drove back after having an amazing banana-crème shake from the raspberry shake store. On the way back we were almost killed by some idiot cutting us off with his Dodge pulling a trailor. When we passed through Logan I called John Dehlin to come by and see him but he was at work. He called me later and we talked for a little bit. We're gonna meet up at Sunstone where he will be speaking on some panels and presentations. We ended up going to Fashion Place Mall. A Chinese man asked me how to join the LDS church, if I had any sisters, and if I knew any women who liked Chinese men. I bought a leather wrist band.

On the way home my mom told me to meet up with everyone at my aunt's house for a BBQ. We went over there and saw my newlywed aunt and uncle, my parents, and cousins. My dad has been really grumpy, especially today, so I gave him a hard time and kept making fun of him for being down. He punched me in the solar-plexus (I think on accident) and I couldn't talk for three minutes. No one knew I was in so much pain because they were watching Americas Funniest Home Videos and were laughing too hard to pay attention to me wincing. I cooked a bad-ass steak, though.

Brazilian Soccer and Asian Meditation

Today was the World Cup again. Brazil has already beaten a few other countries (we watched Brazil vs Ghana in the theatre room next door with two Brazilian families with us), and today they were to play France. My wife and I watched it at a friend's apt. in Branbury with some friends. It was a VERY stressful first half. We were all shouting, rooting and pleading for Brazil to make a goal and stop the other team from scoring. We could all see that France was playing better overall and it was killing us. I was really upset (as was everyone else) and when halftime came around with Brazil still having no goals, I went outside to get some air. I was way stressed.

This morning I had listened to a Sunstone podcast talking about meditation and how it can relieve stress. I laid in the grass in the shade and closed my eyes. I breathed in through my stomach instead of through my chest. I concentrated on my mantra. I tried to clear the clutter of thoughts in my head. It took at least ten minutes to have the ocean of my mind calm. When it did I felt as if I was about to sleep. I was still conscious, though My mind became clear and a physical feeling like that of the Spirit came over my body, starting in my mind. It felt very good. It was physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The stress and ruckus from the game was now being replaced by this feeling of peace and calm. I was even able to turn off my phone while in this state and still continue Zen. This showed me that I was still conscious. The physical sensation that came over me was great. My lips went numb, though for some reason, and my mouth wanted to turn downwards, which kind of bothered/ worried me. I'm sure it was nothing though and I'll look into that later.

When I went back inside to watch the 2^nd half of the game, everyone could see that something had happened to me. They were all wondering what was wrong with me. I just said that I was fine and then watched the game in complete peace...(until Brazil lost, that is).

After Brazil lost, everyone was down. We went for some comfort-food in a Japanese restaurant called Asuka and had their All-You-Can-Eat Sushi. The sushi was amazing. We ordered so much Sushi that we had to take home boxes of Sushi. My wife was so bummed out by the game that she was moody the rest of the day. The stress was so bad that she even got nauseous! I think that she should try the relaxation and meditation techniques that worked for me today.

After lunch we went to a Churrasco (Brazilian-style BBQ) in a park in Provo. I couldnt eat, I was so stuffed but the meat was amazing, though. I played with my daughter (5) and her friend Rebecca (4). I pushed them on the swings and then when I was laying down in the grass I let them beat me up for twenty minutes straight (I wanted to see when they would get tired of hitting me). I played my father-in-law in tennis and lost miserably. The last time I had played I must have been twelve years old in Ohio visiting my grandparents. They had the perfect setup. Their backyard housed acres and acres of forest where I would find snakes, spiders and toads as a kid. The tennis court was right next to their own pond so when it got too hot I could quickly go for a swim and cool off. My dad even used to catch snapping turtles there when he was a kid. My grandpa was excellent at tennis. He would regularly play with Jeffrey Dahmer's dad, who lived in his neighborhood. He said that when they found the body parts in his home that the police sirens went right by his house to the Dahmers. He had met Jeffrey Dahmer several times as well. I would like to become good at tennis because I saw how it was a sport that my grandpa could play late in his life and still be active.