Traveling

Britton and I have both been traveling away from each other a lot lately! First I took a trip to St. Louis to see my old roomie Amy get married. It was like a college reunion. I got to see four roommates, one roommate's husband, and one roommate's fiance turn into a husband!
Before the wedding I got to visit the St. Louis Arch--Gateway to the West right next to the Mississippi river. We rode up in these cozy little claustrophobic "pods" that went through the middle of the arch and dropped you off at the top where you can look out these little windows at the city and river far below.It's 630 feet tall! I'm not really scared of heights, but it was so weird to be so high up in well...an arch. Instead of having floors of a building below you it was so unsettling to be kind of hanging in the air. It also didn't help that Amy said there's a 3 ft sway at the top. Anyway it was fun, and I got to see Amy get married at the St. Louis temple to a great guy. Here's a picture of the happy couple.After I got back from my trip which ended in a 6 hour flight in front of a screaming kid. I just remind myself I will most likely be the parent of the screaming kid someday. Anyway after I got back Britton finished his finals, and then took a skiing trip to Bear Valley with his mom and little brother.



Then I met Britton back in Brentwood for the Easter festivities. Yet another video:)




Right after that...Britton flew to Dayton, Ohio (stopping in Chicago to see his ol' buddy Bill). He toured an air force research facility because he was investigating a possible fellowship(money for school) and internship possibility. His favorite part was visiting the airplane museum. He was like a kid in a candy store, a vampire at a blood bank, or a missionary in Peru. Anyone else have a good analogy? Britton suggested a pedophile in a nursery. He would. Check out Britton in front of an SR71. Oh yeah. It looks like a space ship. Brings back memories of Flight of the Navigator.
We are finally reunited! I picked him up from the train station and we had some Indian food together, and then I made him hang out in my cubicle for the rest of the day:)

Lately

We headed for the hills President's Day to try out mountain biking. There's some trails up in the redwood forests. We barely managed to fit our bikes into our four-door car by taking wheels off, and hanging the handlebars out the windows. Once we found a parking lot we felt a little under dressed because everyone else was totally spandexed out, and using their fancy bike racks, and talking about investing in property in Europe...no joke. So we set out for the trails anyway, and chose a bad one. We rode down, down, down...and never stopped our descent until we ate lunch and I started pouting on this log here.























We found some cute little banana slugs. Which are also the mascot for UC Santa Cruz. Then we rode up, up, up (and walked) and called it a day. It was probably not the best introduction to mountain biking, and Britton is trying really hard to convince me to go again except start with the uphill and end with the downhill.

We also planned to do a bonfire out at the beach with some friends. The day got really windy so we opted for a bonfire at Lake Lagunita instead. It's kind of a glorified water retention area on Stanford's campus. But this time of year it has water...and DUCKS! We got a fire going on the sandy beach-ish area, and ate Girl Scout cookies and told embarrassing stories about each other.

What is NORMAL eating?

It was Wellness Week here at Stanford, and Nikki and I went to one of their activities together. It was 90% for the free t-shirt, 9% for the free food, and 1% to learn about joyful eating. I was expecting her to review the food pyramid and tell us the saintly qualities of broccoli and spinach, but her approach to nutrition was more like freshman roomate number three. It was more of a stay in tune with your body kind of thing rather than being strict with all kinds of rules.
The first thing she said that kind of shocked me was about getting rid of society's rules about good and bad food. Cookies are not bad, and carrots are not good. We need to keep good nutrition principles in mind, but eat what we feel like eating, and the amount we feel like eating. She gave an example of someone who took that advice to an extreme and asked herself everyday what she wanted to eat. She ended up eating raw cookie dough for two weeks...and then never ate it ever again.
Please forgive another post about food/nutrition. But I really liked her message about being in tune with what your body needs. Here's some highlights from the handout she gave us.

Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your times and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.
Instead of thinking about nutrition as "What I shouldn't eat," ask yourself the question, "Am I getting enough?" For instance am I getting enough calcium? Iron? Vitamin C?

Variety & Balance: Just by including a wide variety of foods & food groups in your diet, you will get a lot of the nutrients you need without even thinking about it.
Individuality: No one diet is right for everyone. We have different nutritional needs based on factors such as: gender, age, activity level, and medical history.
Body awareness: Am I hungry? What do I want to eat? Am I full? We need to learn to tune into our hunger and satiety signals, and most importantly, to trust our bodies.

10 Ways to Feel Good in My Body
-I pledge to...
-Not read magazines that make me feel bad about my body.
-Appreciate all of the things my body can do.
-Watch my language! Would I talk to someone else the way I talk to myself?
-Not use exercise to justify what I eat.
-Be flexible and adventurous in the foods that I eat.
-Do nice things for my body, such as go for a walk or take a long bath.
-Be a critical viewer of negative images and messages that tell me I am supposed to look a certain way.
-Not compare myself to other people.
-Show respect for all body types.
-See my body as part of what makes me unique.

She wasn't a fan of diets because they tend to get people into a deprivation-binge cycle. Nikki and I were snickering during most of her speech thinking about our husbands and their calorie and weight charts and graphs. Anyway, I actually felt better and more confident about myself after her nutrition speech. Being pregnant I definitely have felt my body's nutritional needs change, and have been paying more attention to it especially when I don't feel good. "I feel sick, I feel sick...eat...NOW! But eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich not that other sandwich your husband packed." That's what my body says to me. It's so demanding nowadays!

The Dieting Diaries

My freshman year at college I remember making fun of my roommate as she stuffed as much sugar-free, fat-free ice cream as she could into a 1/2 cup measuring cup. She was trying to splurge with sugar-free fat-free ice cream...isn't that an oxymoron? This roommate actually had a great success story losing weight by counting calories. Well, she didn't have a lot to lose, but she went down a couple sizes by keeping track of her caloric and fat intake and running. There were six of us living in that apartment that year, and just about each of us had a different style of eating/dieting.

There was another roommate on the Atkins diet. She fried bacon every morning, and the rest of us went to school smelling like it. She sent away for oily, flavorless Atkins brownie mix. She was really trying to lose weight so she was on the strictest version of Atkins avoiding carrots even. I am so glad the Atkins fad is dying down. To her credit, she actually lost a lot of weight that year. The next roommate followed a kind of diet that kept her in touch with her body. She had some food allergies so she started off with a safe, basic kind of meal. She ate rice, grilled chicken, and vegetables because her body felt good with that combination. She would try adding some other variations and explore what kinds of foods helped her feel healthy and energetic. Moving on to roommate number four, she didn't really diet at all, or need to, but we decided her eating style was to make a lot of food, and give it away to other people.

Roommate number five was my eating buddy. We kind of learned how to cook together that year. We have a picture of our first casserole, and then another one of us feeding it to the ducks. It was a great casserole. Of course I considered myself and this roommate the only "normal" eaters in our apartment. But really, we had our quirks too. My eating buddy liked to balance out all the "bad" things she ate with "good" things. Good things were frozen peas and corn. I tried to balance out eating bad food by running. And our apartment was not unique in it's dieting/bingeing at BYU, or the rest of the nation. Our society has so much quick preparation, unhealthy yet yummy food within reach that we have to come up with crazy ways to deal with it.

Right now I'm not trying to lose weight don't worry. But Britton and his friend Peter decided to lose some pounds by keeping track of calories. Often I think we don't really don't realize how much we eat. So they started sharing this Google document that keeps track of how many calories you consume each day. It looked kind of fun so Nikki and I joined it too. I thought we were close before, but now we know each crumb everyone eats every day. Nothing like peer pressure to change your habits. We also use this force to get us going to the gym every morning. No one wants to be the one to call and back out. Anyway, Britton and Peter are slowly changing their eating habits and working towards their goal. They want to be able to play ping pong downstairs without shirts. And do walking handstands. Very lofty and noble goals.

So what kind of eating/dieting style do you have? Any experiences with diets? Any successes?

The Website of Britton

Yes, Britton has outgrown our little blog, and now he has a website and blog of his own. You can find him at stanford.edu/~bolson As a result, this blog might be more focused on girlie things like tutus, babies, and ravioli. Which speaking of, I will be having our first baby in the beginning of September. I was going to post the first ultrasound picture of our cute little blob, but I realized I accidently threw it away along with Britton's birthday card. Typical me... So if I can get it re-printed it will be posted.

Old Testament...check

So it's taken about two years, but I've finally acheived my goal of reading the entire Old Testament. Yep, I even read the Song of Solomon which has been called biblical smut. It was actually a short book and had some interesting phrases that can be used in corny poetry like, "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead." A flock of goats eh? There were some disturbing stories that I don't want to go into detail, and others were inspiring stories I haden't really heard of before. As in, I might have heard about them in early morning seminary, but they couldn't penetrate my brain at that hour of the morning. One story was when Israel was passing over the Jordan River to enter the promised land. Joshua performed a miracle like Moses had, and he parted the river for them to cross over. I learned about important holy days for Israel like the passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles. I heard the detail that went into King Solomon's ornate temple. There were lots of stone pomagrantes and palm trees for decoration. I realized that even though David made one huge mistake, he lived the majority of his life humbly and obediently. He also made one of his wives embarassed by dancing through the streets. Later in Israel's history there were many prophets prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem. Finally Jersualem is destroyed, and the people are STILL stubborn and don't follow what the prophets say. There were a lot of prophesies from the prophets later in the Old Testament that I'd heard of, but never read myself before. One of the last prophecies I read that has stuck in my mind lately is by Zechariah. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. Taking the prophecy completely literally I was kind of confused. I looked up a explanation about the Feast of Tabernacles, it celebrates an abundant harvest at the end of fall. It's supposed to be the most joyous of the feasts. The tradition is that families go into the wilderness and live in tent like structures to remember the journey of the Children of Isreal in the wilderness. Living away from the comforts of home is supposed to help them remember the blessings God has given them, and teach them they must rely on God. So taking Zecharaiah's prophecy literally I was thinking we would have to travel to a middle-eastern wilderness and camp out with our families each year. Obviously that's unrealistic. A modern-day Feast of Tabernacles I've experienced is Trek. Pulling handcarts in the sun for miles during the day, and sleeping under the stars at night really made me appreciate things like a soft, comfy car seat and any food that doesn't invlove cracked wheat. It also helped me appreciate God's creations and learn to rely on Him more. So maybe that will count...except I don't do it every year. I did go camping twice this year though. So I'm glad I made it through the Old Testament, and I learned a lot from it. God really is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I think I will have to read it many more times to feel like I actually understand it. But for now I need a break.

I've been tagged!

So our friend Michelle, a librarian in Provo tagged me in a game where you are supposed to tell 7 random things about yourself. That's not too hard, I can be pretty random. Ok, so maybe the most random I get is when I order food at restaurants and have to order something different every time. Here's my list of things you just may not know about Renee Olson.

1. I have no middle name. I guess it's also common in Britton's family for girls to have no middle name, but Louise is their default middle name when mom is mad and needs a longer name to get her point accross.

2. I can wiggle my ears. I discovered this talent one day while yawning.

3. I love tofu. I ate it prepared in many different ways in Japan while I was on a mission, and learned to love it. I even eat it plain.

4. I was the homecoming queen my senior year at highschool. Yep, fate smiled upon quiet, shy Renee and I had a lot of attention for about a month. Soon after that pretty much everyone forgot about it:)

5. I leaned how to ride a motorcycle when I was 7. When I was 8 I fell off the motorcycle requiring stitches in my knee and ruining my summer vacation. I never rode it again.

6. I can not drive a stick shift car. Although Vu tried to teach me in highschool on his Toyota MR2 which was about to have the clutch replaced, it never really stuck with me.

7. In the Big Brain Academy on Wii, the birdcage switch-a-roo game is my best game. Sorry, this one is kind of lame, but 7 random things is hard to come up with.

So there you go. Consider yourself more educated in Renee trivia. Now if we ever play a game involving random things about people you'll know all my answers. Passing on this tradition I would like to formally tag Britton, Jeffrey(Padre), Stephanie Dance, and Emily Gustafson.

Happy Anniversary to my Parental Units

Today, January 11th, is the 28th anniversary of the marriage of my wonderful parents and I thought I'd put up a picture of their wedding announcement (designed by Jeff) and pay tribute to their HIGHLY successful partnership. This being a public arena, I don't think it too appropriate to dive into too many mushy details about why us kids love them so much. I will say that we do love them and that their marriage has been quite the example to Renee and I.

One funny memory I have, which is also the only time I've seen them argue, was when Dad was putting up the Christmas Tree a decade or so ago. He was having trouble with it, as I recall and ended up yelling something to mom that ended in "...Margo!". Derek, the "sensitive" child, stood up and said, "You're ruining Christmas!", and ran off to his room. He wouldn't come out until he saw that they had apologized properly.

All are invited to voice their congratulations and share a fond memory they have of the happy couple.

P.S. Please, none of the usual comments about changes in physical appearance.