the highlights, in pictures

Since everyone likes pictures the best anyway, here is what we've been up to lately:

Rob turned 22 and he celebrated by coming out of the closet. At Express.

I spend most of my days working at Waikiki Tanning Salon. And dyeing my hair so that I can look just like Kristi.

Rob built a giant cross for his History of Creativity class. It turned out really neat but I'm concerned about what he is going to do with it later...

Rob and I worked on our Vogue poses at his house in Shelley, Idaho over the Fourth of July weekend.

Kristi cruised around Idaho with us in the Nerd Mobile over the Fourth of July weekend. We thought we should document that the vanity tag is still an accurate description of all those who ride in the car.

Other than that, life is pretty much the same. Rob studies Organic Chemistry and I work at my tanning salon. I will be starting school again in the fall which I am very excited about. I'm a little nervous that my brain has forgotten how to think but hopefully it will remember when the time comes. We are just living it up in Provo and loving the married life. We couldn't be happier!

love, jolie

Perú

In effort to better save the world, Rob(that's me!) went with his mission pal Parker to Peru for some humanitarian work! The plan was to spend a week with Operation Smile doing translating and then watching cleft pallet surgeries. Well, thanks to a little friend called H1N1 virus, aka Swine Flu, the mission was canceled one week before departure! Since airlines are so much fun, ticket reimbursement or schedule change was expensive and impossible.(Which was later reinforced by our Bahama trip airplane travel, but Jolie wants to blog about that trip so you'll hear about that later!) Parker and I decided to go anyways, and spend the time visiting converts and friends, since both of served in Peru. We made a quick plan to visit Machu Picchu. We spent a lot of time visiting converts for the first few days. One highlight was attending a Peruvian wedding reception/party that lasted til 2 in the morning. Parker who couldn't escape the Latinas since he is not married, was actually stalked by a girl at the party. She constantly pulled him out to the dance floor. In effort to save my friend, I took our friend out to dance by his side, which the girl then began to pull Parker's arms, forcing him into the center of the crowd and avoiding our efforts to suppress the situation. Poor guy. It didn't help either, as the M.C. of the party repeated shouted "Parker, Parker, Baile con tu princessa peruana(dance with your Peruvian princess!) Lets just say he was the hit gringo of the party!

On Saturday at lunch around 3 pm, the friend I was staying at had been looking for cheap tickets to fly to Iquitos, the jungle of Peru. Both Parker and I served in Iquitos, and we wanted to visit now that our trip's focus had been converted from service to sight-seeing. He called and told us the cheapest flight would be at 7 pm! In classic Peruvian spontaneity, we told him to buy the tickets. We would have just enough time to leave right away, travel 40 min to where Parker was staying, then 40 min return and travel the 20 min to the airport to catch the flight! While in the airport, we finally were able to get a hold of our friends from Iquitos to inform them we would be coming and needed a place to stay! (I promise, in Peruvian time this is not as rude as it sounds!!! By only calling before arriving at the door, provides a generous gesture and courtesy.) Iquitos was HOT and HUMID and wonderful! we spent time traveling around in motorcycle taxis, visiting converts, attending church, seeing an old mission companion and his new wife and baby! and of course riding up the Amazon River and visiting some tribes.

After the few days in Iquitos, we returned back to Lima, and the very next morning we flew to Cusco! A very cute, cobble stoned street, mountain town. We had an old mission buddy set us up with his travel agency, and they took us around to see the ruins around the city, including the fun to pronounce, Sasquayhuaman(saxy woman). The next day we spent a three hour train ride up to Machu Picchu, which is a beautiful site to see. The environment there is called a high mountain jungle, the only spots on the mountains that are not lush green are the white granite slabs of cliff face. Machu Picchu is located at the top of a mountain, which appears to be on the rim of a ring of tall mountain peaks. In this bowl of mountains, a large one protrudes in the center. A bus takes you from the bottom of this bowl, switch backing all the way up, toward Machu Picchu. From below, it looks smalled compared to the grandeur of the peaks around it. Once inside, Machu Picchu appears quite large and intricate for being on the top of a mountain. We spent the day taking pictures and wandering the ruins, and then back down the mountain and back on the train for another three hours, eventually returning to Cusco for a meal costing 2 dollars, which includes 2 liter drink, two friend chicken breast, french fries, fried rice, and a salad! KFC is rippin us off!

The trip was wonderful, the last day we flew in to Lima, visited our old mission President and the mission office, bought some pirated latin music, said goodbye to the friends in where we had slept while at Lima, and then hopped a plane to Florida that night. It was a great experience to go back, and the trip gave me new and better thoughts and opinions about Peru. As a missionary, you deal with the worst of a country at times. Battling every day with the people who need the most repentance and improvement, sometimes you don't see enough of the hope and goodness of those that don't need called to repentance from the missionaries.

10 days, I called Jolene every night, and sometimes more than once a day. And the best part was coming back to be with her again! I flew from Peru to Philadelphia, and met Jolie at her parents house. The very next morning though, I was back on the plane again, but this time with Jolie as we headed to the Bahamas!!

If we don't answer the phone, we might be asleep!

As beau I thought I'd add a little update on the Ehlers happenings. Jolie, as usual, is feeling a bit woozy today. Its 12:20 pm on Sunday.... yesterday she took a three hour nap from 6-9 last night, then we hung out at Kristi's new apartment with Jamie and JD and his friend Taylor. Jolie and I took off after two hours because she got a headache. So from 11 last night till 10 in the morning, we've been asleeping. However, breakfast was just a little too much for Jolie, so she is back in bed.... and being a little bored, I am viewing other blogs and now typing ours! Lucky for Jolie, sleeping 15 plus hours is something I can sympathize with, and may be just slightly jealous, except not jealous she is sick! Kristi, just called from her work at Waikiki tanning salon, she is incredibly bored, and once again has to talk to me, cause Jolie is asleep.
The last few days, Jolie and I haven't had much to do. I am out of school for the semester, and Jolie had the day off. So Kristi put us to work. Yesterday we took her car in to get an oil change, and then we helped her move apartments, and then helped her roommate and our friend Kathryn move on Saturday. We also spent a few hours shopping for apartment stuff. Kristi has a really nice new apartment (it comes with an ELEVATOR!!! wow).
BYU semester ended and Finals ended for me on Tuesday! Monday was just ugly, since I spent from five in the morning preparing for a seven am organic chemistry test! Then after the three hour test, I spent two hours getting ready for a physiology test that was scheduled at noon, then after a much needed nap, I studied and took my music civilization class. My brain was fried! Looks like I survived the semester!
This month I am in a four week EMT course. It started Tuesday, and goes mon-thurs for four weeks. This first week has been pretty lame, it is government run curriculum, so they have to cover dumb topics like "How to present yourself as an EMT" and "Eating Healthy as an EMT"... however, I did get CPR certified on Thursday! Next week we start patient assessment, and then get into some more intense topics... like assisting in birth.
A quick note, as soon as the EMT course is completed, a mission buddy and I are headed to Peru to translate for Operation Smile! He is already accepted into UCLA dent school, and I hope to one day attend dental school. It will be from May 19-29, and Jolie, being the best wife ever!, encouraged me to go even when at first I didn't want to be gone for that long.
As beautiful weather hit Provo last week, and gas prices jumped above two dollars again, Jolie and I decided it was time to purchase some bicycles! I found mine off craigslist from a pre-missionary that is leaving and needed to sell his. It's a glowing green mountain bike, with a nice comfy seat on it. Already, my legs are sore from riding up the hill on campus! Jolie's bike was partially purchased with some left over gift cards from wedding gifts. It is a pink beach cruiser, which is supposed to arrive this week! Since she is close enough to bike to work, and I am close enough to campus, we hope to cut down on the amount of gas we use. (to clarify, this is NOT an attempt at going green) I can only see gas prices rising even more as summer comes in full swing. How come some of the billions of bailout cash can't keep gas prices low? High gas prices increase the cost of groceries, shipping, transportation. High gas prices destroy already tight budgets of individuals and businesses. This creates business cutbacks, and citizens unable to pay off bills and debts, and even their mortgages. If summer gas prices soar above four dollars again, we'll see the same crashing cycle come in the fall.

pointless objects

There are times in life when you are given opportunities to glance around you and reflect on all the wonderful things that surround you. These rare moments seem to occur with less frequency as daily routines gradually fill with an increasing number of obligations and activities. As life briefly came to a small lull this weekend, Rob and I relished in the opportunity to gaze about our small apartment and quitely count our blessings. It was while we were engaged in this excersize that we recognized that, while our apartment is extremely cute and adorably decorated (thanks to the help of Kristi and Mama), there are many practical objects that have been transformed by our modern society into things that are, frankly, rather pointless. For example, while it is important to have a clock in order to keep track of the time so that I can try to prove that my mother's habit for being late to everything is not genetic, is it really necessary to have one that is as large as an entire wall? Rob will eagerly admit that it is one of my favorite gifts that we received for our wedding, but who is the first person who looked at a car tire and decided that that was an acceptable size for a clock? The hands alone are half a foot long and could possibly impale a human being were it ever to fall from its lofty position.
Bewildered, we continued to look about our apartment and proceeded to notice the bar stools. Rob was understandably frustrated when we traveled to Target in order to purchase three bar stools for our new apartment and we found that Target only stocks items in even numbers, limiting our purchase to two stools at 29'' tall. Determined to provide adequate seating for any friends we may ever bribe into visiting our humble abode, we continued our quest at Wal-Mart, grateful that they did indeed have the color we needed...only to find that they only stock stools at 30'' tall. So now we have not only an oversized clock hanging on our wall the size of a giant frisbee, we also have three stools of mismatched heights, one looking more than a tad ridiculous as it is obviously taller than the others. The disproportioned height is a subject that is brought up each morning when Rob sits at the counter to eat his cold cereal so believe me, it is something we have struggled to live with.
And then we have to take into account the fact that we did shell out a small fortune for the luxury of our king size mattress. (Mind you, I purposefully did not put "king size bed" because we do not in fact have the actual headboard, just the mattress). While it may seem a ridiculous newlywed purchase to some, we have found that it is a pointless object that we have realized we never want to live without. Seeing as how Rob is a rather large human being and I am not so small myself, we enjoy the space that an oversized sleeping mat provides. Rob also claims that he is keeping his health in mind as it is less probable that I will kick him in the middle of the night if I cannot reach him. Not only is he saving himself from physical injury, I am saving myself from overheating. Rob may claim otherwise, but I am convinced his normal body temperature runs at least ten degrees above average. The man is like a personal heater.
Rob would argue that many of my feminine hygiene products are pointless, however I disagree. Yes, the brand of shampoo does matter and I think Alixa would agree with me on that. Curling iron size does indeed create a drastic and often dramatic difference for a hair day, and having two towels is not an indulged luxury but actually a necessity.
Welcome to our world.