tag - i'm it

Erica E. tagged me a few days back and here are the rules:

1.Go to your document/pictures file on your computer

2.Go to the 6th file

3.Go to the 6th picture

4. Blog about that picture

5. Tag 6 people...so here goes - this is a pictures of Lexee, me, and Kristina during High School. We went to the beach for a get together with some friends while living in Cali. I miss being able to just drive to the beach for the weekend to hang out and just play. That was so much fun!

I tag: Corinne, Erin, Jannene, Karissa, Ali, & Jen

Utah Here We Come!

Today Tyson has officially accepted a job offer at the law firm Miller Guymon, PC. They are located in Salt Lake City, Utah, so we will now be Utahns starting in May when we move out there. Tyson is flying out on the 18th and starts work the next day. Tyson' s bar study courses start on the afternoon of the 18th. I will probably be flying out on the 19th.

We're really excited because this means a new chapter in our lives is about to begin. We are thrilled to see what new adventures our lives have in store for us. Sadly, this also means that a chapter of our life is coming to a close. We have absolutely loved the combination of law school and DC. There has been so much fun stuff to do here and so many fun people to do it with. We are going to miss it but look forward to future visits.

So prepare to brace yourselves Utah because the Horrocks' are moving in!

Law School Prom

Tyson and I went to GW's Law School Prom last weekend. We have never been to a dance together so I was excited and kept reminding him in the Metro over that he's never really danced with me...I'm not sure if that made him nervous or what but I was just really excited that it was finally going to happen. I LOVE dancing! It was the last dance of the school year so basically the last one we would be able to go to out here which was sad, but I can just tell you now that there will definitely be more dancing where this came from!! I hope you enjoy the pics :) you can click on it to make it larger to enjoy in it's full glory.

Oh the joys of job hunting

I started this post October 4th with the full intent to put it on the blog that day. Tyson read it and said he didn't want to put anything on the blog about job hunting in case a future employer saw it and decided not to hire him....I got pretty mad about it but got over the fact that he was probably right. I'm just glad I can finally post about our job hunting experience.

Here are some pictures of the current wave of envelopes that were sent out last week (in October). This whole job hunting thing is really hard work. It is hard with Tyson working during the week and taking a lot of credits this semester. I think if he knew his job would have asked him to stay working there during the year, he would have taken just a few less.

Anyways - he hasn't been able to spend as much time as he would like with job hunting because he is busy with work, school, and getting great grades. Soooo I took it upon myself to help him with it! I mean how hard could it be? It wasn't until Tyson and I started looking up hundreds of firms' contact information to send resume's to, updating each cover letter, and stuffing envelopes that I realized how much work this really took. Tyson and I put hours and hours into this, and I just know that it will pay off soon (little did we know that soon would be about 5 months away). Tyson and I joke around that he wishes I could take his tests for him sometimes, and I am glad that this is actually something that I can do to relieve some of his stress. It makes me feel pretty good. I have loved just going with the flow and seeing where our law school adventure would take us, and so far it has been a great adventure.

Same Wavelength

A few weeks back my co-worker said her daughter was selling Girl Scout Cookies, I thought hmm...I think I'll surprise Tyson with a box. He'll love that! I proceeded to order one box of Thin Mints - his fav, and one box of Samoas - my fav. The day they came in I told him I had a surprise for him. He then called me up later that day...

Him: Laura...there were these 3 really cute Girl Scouts selling cookies, and I kinda bought some.
Me: How many did you buy? - thinking in my head: so much for a surprise!
Him: Um...just a few...
Me: How many is a few?!
Him: Not too many...
Me: How many did you get?
Him: Three....BUT hear me out! I got one box of Samoas for you, one box of Tagalongs for me, and then the last box of Thin Mints because we both like them! I was just thinking of you!
Me: Tyson! You're totally going to make us fat!
Him: Girl Scout cookies don't make you fat. They're not even bad for you.

He had the three boxes of cookies on the table when I got home and asked what his surprise was. I then pulled out the box of Thin Mints and tossed them at him laughing. I figured I'd just leave the Samoas at my desk at work to have a few as a snack every day. Obviously we were meant for each other and are on the same wavelength.

THEN Tyson packs up his stuff to fly to Utah for a few days.

Me: If your mom offers you to take home any Girl Scout cookies, just kindly refuse and tell her we already have 5 boxes at home because of the little mix up this week. We are seriously going to be fat.
Him: Ok sounds good. You don't need to worry about it geese.

I surprise him by being at the airport when he lands and we metro home.

Him: Hey I have a surprise for you.
Me: (obviously remembering our cookie matter says) Please tell me it isn't more cookies from your parents.
Him: Nope, it's something else....
Me: Good, because we are just going to gain more weight.

He then pulls out two fresh grapefruit that his parents got from his Aunt and Uncle's tree in AZ. I love grapefruit that's such a sweet suprise! He then proceeds to unload 5 BOXES of Girl Scout cookies that his mom graciously got for us!!! So that makes us the current owners of 10 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. So much for self control Tyson.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Puebla & Pyramids

Wednesday we toured Puebla where my parents live, and some old pyramids. We drove around quite a bit to see the city and here are a few of the pictures from that. I loved how colorful the buildings were. It was also humbling to see the way some of the residents live, and makes me very grateful for everything we have in our lives.

We then went to a wonderful Talavera shop that is owned by my mother's friend's friend. My mom made an appointment so they would show us the steps they do to make the talavera. We drove up and walked into this little store and started looking around. When we got to the back of one room it led into another room, then another. There were around 8 rooms that were all connected with talavera ALL over every nook and cranny! It was amazing, every room looked like you took power washer full of paint and splattered it all over the place but ended up with gorgeous designs covering every wall and floor. There was talavera stacked in piles and piles as far as the eye could see and under every display table.

It was neat seeing the whole process in front of you from the start to the colorful end result. We saved up some money to bring some Mexico treasures home with us and I was completely excited and overwhelmed with all of the options they had, I was in heaven! I wish I could have a whole set of dishes, but Tyson wouldn't have gone for that. I decided to pick out the pieces I loved and walk around with them so they wouldn't end up lost in the talavera abyss forever. I put them together to make the final decision, otherwise there would be no way to remember what room had which pieces and what they looked like after 5 minutes of wandering and searching through piles. After much searching, contemplating, walking around through the store hugging a vase/bowl I found we ended up with some pretty cool stuff.

Below are our findings from the whole trip which I will treasure forever. The black pottery on the left is from a market they had and came from Oaxaca which is a city known for their clay pottery. The egg-shaped one has a candle holder base and when you light it up it shines through all of the carvings, and the cup-looking black pottery can be a pencil holder. We got a talavera cookie jar (thanks to my husband letting me buy just one more thing that I loved at that amazing store), the adorable vase/bowl which is one of my favorites, a serving dish, as well as a veggie/trip tray where the sections come out. Also there are some little dresses for when Ty and I eventually have a girl as well as the jewelry I bought in Jalcomulco and the Sun Stone from our pyramid trip which is now in our bathroom.

Then we headed to a cute market that had some adorable things. The sellers weren't in your face trying to convince you to buy things like they usually do in the border cities. We then went to pick up Jenny and on the way we saw these police driving around in the back of a pickup with machine guns...that was an interesting sight, and it was weird to see them guarding some banks. While we were waiting for Jenny to get out of school my mom bought us Churros (or Churritos we used to call them in school) which I really missed being able to eat!

One of Tyson's requests was to go to the Harley store which we were able to find. He got a few shirts from my parents as a belated b-day gift from there which were neat.

That night after driving all over I asked my mom to teach us how to make her amazing cinnamon rolls and she obliged. Tyson had never made them so he joined right in (I love that he loves cooking), and it was fun capturing all of his faces in the process.

...and here are some other faces that were made in the process.

Thursday we woke up bright and early to head to Teotihuacan which is NE of Mexico City. It was Tyson and I, my mom, and her friend Laurie (our guide) who's dad is an archaeologist - and she is in my mom's ward. Her father taught her and her sister all about ruins and they went with him all over the world to study archaeology and would compare it to the information in the Book of Mormon. It was great to have her there because she did all sorts of research on these pyramids. She said that they believe the people of Ammon used to live at Teotihuacan and they were eventually run out by the Lamanites. They used cement to build a lot of the structures and the archaeologists who are now working on the pyramids also found a baptismal font supported by 12 oxen. They don't let people inside because they can't explain it - supposedly the area didn't have oxen there at that time. She also believes that Christ came to Teotihuacan and areas around here to visit the people. It was very interesting to hear her thoughts on all of this!

We walked around and Laurie said you can find little pieces of old pottery on the ground. We picked up some good ones and put them in a bag my mom had. There was a vendor that sold us an arrowhead he found in the area which was also pretty cool. The pyramid below is the Pyramid of the Sun which is the most famous and takes FOREVER to get to the top because it's so huge and the elevation is killer. Halfway up we saw a gopher going in and out of his hole which was weird...I wonder where his tunnels go! The one on the right is us touching the center which supposedly rejuvenates you (according to some tourists on top).

View from the top of the Sun Pyramid. The bottom-right hand corner is my mom and Laurie walking around looking for small old pieces of pottery which are all over the place. My mom found a spear head and Laurie was really excited about that!

So we went down to the bottom to rejoin them and look at the spear head my mom found and came upon this....there was some police guy standing there lecturing my mom and Laurie. We went over there and supposedly taking things from the ground and buying things like our arrowhead from people is against the law even though there are no signs or ropes around areas or anything. Laurie poured the contents of the bag onto the ground so he could see it was nothing (while he wasn't looking she picked up the spear head and put it in her bra so they wouldn't confiscate it lol). He picked everything up from the ground, all the while Laurie was talking back and forth with him in Spanish...

...then he made us get in their pickup to drive us to the station. All the while I was thinking that this whole situation was really ridiculous and Tyson was afraid we were going to go to a Mexican Prison and he could never get his Law Degree haha. He tends to overreact sometimes which is cute. So here is a picture of us leaving the pyramid in the pickup and heading to the station to see what would happen to us. I was just really hoping they didn't take away the arrowhead because I wanted to put it in the scrapbook!

Our ride over we were just joking about random things that I don't remember. I wonder if my mom had ever been in the back of a Mexican Police pickup truck. It did, however give us some great views of the pyramids and we didn't have to walk over to this other long section that we drove by. So we were taken to three different places, Laurie did some great convincing that the arrowhead wasn't original so they gave it back to us and kept the pottery. They then picked up these two other archaeologists who work there and drove us all back to where they found us so we could show them where we found everything. Then we were let go yay!
So anyways - that was our adventures in Teotihuacan. We were going to go see a mural painted by the old inhabitants of a white man with a beard wearing a white robe with his hands outstretched with blood coming out of them and there are animals and people that look really happy and rejoicing all above him. Laurie believed that this was Christ when he visited the area. When we got there it was closed...thanks a lot police guys!

Friday was our last day and we went to the city of Cholula which is the longest current inhabited city in the America's because people still live there. We went to an area where people painted a mural of old legends and you can see what looks like to be Christ wearing a white robe. The legends say that he came to Cholula and administered to the people teaching them ways of kindness. It said he was there with them for around 20 years.

We then went to their market which was a huge enclosed area where people sold all sorts of things they specialized in. There was TONS of meats, flowers, fruits and all sorts of interesting things. You could buy different parts of chicken like just the heads or feet...gross. It was definitely a sensory overload!

The city of Cholula has an old pyramid with a church built on top of it. We were able to go all through the pyramid and saw lots of secret passages and stairs that would lead to nowhere. It would be really creepy to go there at night...alone...that would totally freak me out!

Here is the inside of the church. It is pretty amazing how intricate they get with the insides or churches/cathedrals which they still use today. My mom and I were walking around the pyramid because Laurie said you could sometimes find pieces of Jade or other things from long ago. We found a lot of pottery and picked up a few. Tyson was just telling me that if I was arrested he wouldn't bail me out because we should know better. When we got home we washed them off and I realised that one of the pieces I found was a face carved in pottery! It was so neat! It has the nose, eyes, lips, and even these earrings you can faintly see (you can click on the picture to make it larger). My mom showed it to Laurie our guide and she said it is authentic. The white in the recesses are there because it was originally painted white, and she would date it between 1400 to 1500 ad. (Pre-conquest, she said.) Pretty cool!

We went on top of the pyramid to watch the sun set behind their active volcano which was the end of our trip. We loved every minute of it, and we are so glad to spend that time with my family. I feel so lucky that we were able to go and spend time with my parents. Thanks guys! It was a blast and I would do it again in a heart beat.

Happy times in Jalcomulco

Sunday we went to church with my family which was interesting. They go to an all Spanish ward and very few of the members speak English. Being in those types of situations makes me REALLY want to learn Spanish so I can communicate better with people. There are a few differences between their ward in Puebla, Mexico and the wards we have in the states: there is no carpet in the whole building just tile, they don't hand out a meeting schedule with who is speaking etc, my mom is adorable while teaching choir practice in Spanish, the chairs aren't pews in the chapel just regular padded chairs where some are connected to others, one of the brothers in the bishopric wore a sweater instead of a suit coat, they are all very friendly and you can tell that they genuinely care about each other. It was a great experience and also fun to watch my dad teach the single adults in their class.

After church we rushed over to my dad's plant for a tour. I'd never seen how fiberglass was made. My favorite parts were standing next to the HUGE oven/furnace that melts the materials and then sends the glass through a comb-like machine that separates it into thousands of miniscule glass strands and then having it wound up into a spool. Tyson got a kick out of it too because I don't think he'd ever been to a manufacturing plant. I even got to take home a green glob of glass that was made there...pretty cool! It reminds me of my days working for my dad making drawer slides for another company he worked for.

That night we drove out to a town near Veracruz called Jalcomulco. It was getting dark at the end of the drive and everything around us was jungley which was really neat! When we got there they checked us into the hotel and Miguel our tour guide walked us through the activities we were doing on Mon through Tues and had us sign out life away in case anything happened. Here is the hotel we stayed in. They served us meals 3 times a day and the rooms were very quaint.


Monday morning we slept in and ate breakfast with fresh fruit, ham & eggs, little tortilla/salsa things, and freshly squeezed juice. We then got all our gear on and headed out to go white water rafting. The river was amazing and we were surrounded by jungle the whole way. It was neat seeing a few exotic birds along the sides. Because it isn't the high tide season the rapids weren't too intense so Miguel played a bunch of games with us while we were in the lighter rapids which resulted in many of us falling out multiple times.
Here you can see a fisherman who is picking up his traps he set in the water to see what he caught. They will wade into the river and set the hand-made traps out with bait to attract shrimp and lobster to cook/sell them in the town. A kayaker in our group said he would take some good pictures with my waterproof camera we brought and he did a great job. I loved this fisherman one and the pictures above that he took! So props to Jose (I think that's what his name was).

Miguel said that a lot of fisherman will live in these overhangs or caves in the mountain.

We went back to the hotel, had lunch and then headed on our way to go repel an 80 foot cliff. The whole ride and hike over there my mom kept saying that she wasn't sure she was going to do it, but she's the one in the top right of this picture repelling up a storm! It was probably the scariest thing I've ever done in my life, and by the look of Tyson's face on our video camera I'm sure he felt the same way. My dad was a pro and had done it before but it still freaked him out a little.

It was scary because imagine yourself starting backwards down this cliff and you have 100lb Miguel on the top holding you up trying to communicate to you in Spanish what you're supposed to do. Not only do you have the language barrier but you're waiting for my dad's translation as you're hanging backwards off this 80 foot cliff thinking you're doing something wrong...then you find out that Miguel just wanted you to jump like 3 feet out from the cliff and let more of the rope through just for fun. What goes through your head?! "Hell no I'm not doing that!" Then Miguel just laughs, and the whole while you're thinking in your head that you're going to die any second and see Miguel flying through the air towards you holding the support rope in his hands, and then you will never be able to make little Laura and Tyson babies...... basically that is what I was thinking while I was repelling, which is why my smile was forced and I felt like I was going to pee myself (which I am proud to say I didn't). Here is mis padres and the gorgeous view. My dad wasn't feeling too hot, I think he ate something that didn't agree with his stomach but he was still a trooper and said he would have repelled again (all of us just went once it freaked us out so much!)... at least he says that he would have gone again. I beg to differ. After we repelled Miguel took us to this cave that had stalagmites and an old cave painting which was pretty neat to see.
That night we headed back to the hotel, had dinner and just relaxed with each other and talked about that terrifying experience. Miguel told us the next day we were going to go four wheeling and zip lining through the mango trees. The great thing is we were able to sleep in the next morning also and we headed to pick up the four wheelers. Here is Tyson posing next to a real live banana tree! We'd never seen them in the wild!

We four wheeled all over the Mexico jungle until we got to the mango grove. There was also a banana grove (not sure if they're groves or farms or what), but it was neat to see more of them. We got all geared up and my dad mentioned that you aren't really having fun unless the activity you're doing involves wearing a helmet. All of the activities on this trip involved helmets, and let me tell you they were a blast! (I'm never doing repelling again off an 80 foot cliff again in the heart of Mexico though.) Zip lining was really fun. We had to walk up this platform/bridge thing to get to one of the mango tree tops and flew through the air. It was a first for me and a blast!

I began to love the adorable quaint little town of Jalcomulco and recommend everyone to go visit it if you are going to the Mexico area! There are tons of things to do and see. My mom and I bought some fun jewelry/purses from a lady who lived in a house that looks like these right next door to our hotel.

Spring Break = shorts, flip flops, & MEXICO!

This year...as you all may know, is Tyson's third and final year of Law School. He officially graduates this May which is insane!...but exciting at the same time. We have been putting away money into our travel account monthly including our full tax returns for the past few years so we can take lots of trips before we have kids. This was our last spring break and the last two were lame because Tyson had school stuff to do so we decided to go all out and visit my parents in Mexico for a week, and let me tell you it was a blast! We flew into Mexico City and my parents and Jennifer picked us up and toured all over with us. It was amazing to fly in and see 2nd largest city in the world. The houses and buildings stretched as far as the eye can see, and there were huge mountain regions sourrounding the whole area.My dad had a driver for the day which was fun. He drove us over to the Zocalo which is the largest public square in the western hemisphere where you will see Mexican dancers all dressed up with feathers and preforming traditional dances. There are little shops and vendors sitting on the ground with their array of hand-made souvenirs. We saw a modern-day medicine man that was taking out the evil from people by smoking incense and blowing a conch shell at them.

The huge building right in the Zocalo is the Metropolitan Cathedral which they started building in 1573. I don't think I've seen a building that old before! The inside had gold all over with different rooms barred off where you can pray to different saints who help you with different things. Supposedly it has sunk a lot since it has been built which is interesting.

This flag that is flown in the center of the square was created in 1821, when the Independence movement had ended victoriously. They have a ceremonial lowering of the flag by the Army at 6pm. It was fun to see them all dressed in their uniforms with the trumpeters and drum players. The flag is so huge that it took around 7 guys running around trying to make sure it didn't touch the ground in the wind while lowering it.
I don't remember what this guy represented but I thought it was kind-of funny. I think it was the God of Death or something like that which they found while they were excavating. This is just one of the many statues and artifacts around the area.
It was so much fun to see the dancers with their huge feather headdresses and listen to the shells making sounds on their ankles. The guy below looks pretty good for his age playing the drums every day! Right by by/in the Zocalo they started building a parking structure and they found old ruins underneath! They kept excavating and it seemed that there was an old pyramid which had 7 other pyramid's built around the original inner layer. In those times when someone would conquer a city of people they would keep all of them as slaves to use as sacrifices. They would also make them build their "own" pyramid outside the original one so it would be taller and more grand. The picture on the left of me w/the dancer is an area they found where they carved sculls into the walls.

That night we drove back to Puebla to spend the night because it isn't safe to stay in Mexico City. We were in the WORST traffic jam in this one intersection I have ever seen!! There were cars coming from all directions into one intersection and we all know people there don't obey the laws so we (and a ton of other cars) were surrounded! It was amazing...

So the next morning we drove in again to Mexico City and went to the Museo Nacional de Antropología which has a lot of different artifacts and interesting discoveries from old cities they've uncovered. It was amazing to see all of these super old carvings and try to see how their way of life would have been. I kept thinking it would be cool to live in that day in age...but only if you were rich and were never conquered or you would end up pretty much being sacrificed.
Here is the Original Sun Stone which was excavated in the Zocalo in 1790! It is commonly misconceived to be an Aztec calendar. We found out that it was actually used by the descendants of the Aztecs and they had warriors fight on or near it and they would preform human sacrifices on it. It was interesting how they explained that the tongue represented a sacrificial knife and the hands are holding human hearts. With how gross all of that ends up meaning, it was pretty cool and a lot bigger than I though it would be. A copy now sits on our bathroom wall.

One of these things is not like the other....one of these things just isn't the same. Tyson wanted in on that head-dress action.
That concludes our Mexico City portion of our trip. It was a blast to see our first glimpses of old ruins and artifacts which would prepare us for Teotihuacan. Below is the Angel of Independence which is well known (and is also sinking) and we also went to the Palace of Fine Arts but the tour was closed by the time we got there...I did, however use their restroom and we were able to see the murals painted on the inside of the building. The outside was neat with the huge dome that lights up at night.