Some news......

Well, now you will all finally discover why I have been such a slacker at blogging for nearly the past year......I was busy falling in love!

I met Michael Keith Ritchie (Mike) during training in July 2009 in DC. We had both been assigned to work at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. We got to know each other a little bit during our first year in Venezuela (though not too much, because I decided my best course of action was ignoring him at work, so nobody could corner me and ask me if I liked him, which I did :) We started dating almost a year ago (so glad he had the gumption to ask me out), and tried to keep it on the down-low as best we could, though I think towards the end pretty much everyone at the embassy knew.

My 2 year tour in Venezuela ended on October 1st, and Mike took his R&R to coincide with my trip home. We visited New Mexico (the land of my birth!), and met up with his family in Albuquerque for the annual hot air balloon festival. We spent a day in Santa Fe, then flew to Phoenix (where Mike is from) to spend time with his family and see the sights! Mike is an ASU grad, so we spent some time in Tempe, ate way too much good American (and Mexican) food, saw downtown Phoenix, the Capitol, a desert botanical garden, and lots more. Then we drove up to Sedona and saw more beautiful desert scenery.

Then we headed to Utah. The original plan was to go to DC for him to be able to meet my family, but my parents were out in Utah for BYU's homecoming events (of course!). We went to the homecoming football game, and Mike pulled my Dad aside to ask his permission to marry me.......I think I was more nervous than Mike! But they had a good chat while Mom and I waited in the stands. Our schedule was so packed in Utah, meeting siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on both sides, that the only time available for a proposal was Sunday morning (I told Mike I'd set aside a few hours for him).

So.......we were both so exhausted from all of our travels, that when Mike kept saying at the football game "I'm about ready to go," I didn't think anything of it (even though we were only up by 10 at that point, and I shouldn't have felt comfortable leaving with so small a difference in scores). Even though we left a little early, we got up to his brother's place in Salt Lake pretty late. I worked on getting my giant duffel bag out of the trunk while Mike was fumbling around in his backpack (he says he dropped the ring box, but luckily I was too tired to notice). We get to the front door, and he drops my bag and starts fumbling around in his jacket pocket. I think he's getting his phone out to call his brother, so as not to wake his niece up. But then he says "go ahead, I think it's open." So I open the door, knock a little, call out "hello?" Hm, no one's there. But there were candles lit on the table, and Frank Sinatra playing.....what a nice home! Haha, Mike calls out "turn around...." So I turn around, and there he is on one knee, and he proposed to me right there on the doorstep. I said yes! And then about passed out from the shock. Not from saying yes, that was a given. But I was SO SURE it was going to be the next day. There just wasn't any other time that would have worked! Mike's brother and sister in law had, under Mike's direction, set up this beautiful romantic scene that I only saw after saying yes (I was pretty oblivious). They made our favorite dessert from Venezuela, an amazing butterscotch pudding, and had out lots of other favorites of mine, like hot chocolate, and bread and cheese, and raspberries (and lots of flowers! And rose petals scattered all over the ground!). Amazing. Not to mention the ring, that's probably another reason why I almost passed out. The proof, below:


I love you Mike!

Wow, that was a long blog post. Just trying to catch up :) Will be back with more soon!

Oh, and we're getting married in January, in the Washington D.C. LDS Temple!

Ciao gente!

Well, today is my last day in Venezuela, and then I'll be off on a new adventure.



It has been an amazing experience for me -- very difficult at times, but I learned a lot, I loved my job (most days :), and I met some great people.



I have some pretty good stories.......especially from the last 6 months I spent in the immigrant visa section ("Why did you decide to marry her?" "Well, we got along, she was nice, and I thought 'Eh, why not try it out?'"). But there are too many for one blog post. I'll be in DC for the forseeable future, so look me up and we'll catch up!

But before I sign out (I had to do something to keep me occupied while interviewing those 15,000 visa applicants) here is a list of my favorite names I saw on people's applications:

Gloria America
Virginia America
Birginia
Diva
Missleaddy
July
Hilario

Ciao!

In order to activate your new debit card, please.........stand on your head.

Sometimes it's the little things that are good for a laugh. I almost laughed myself to tears after this latest episode of my life:

[Automated phone response] "To activate your new [Venezuelan] debit card, please enter your debit card number."

"Please enter the first 2 digits of your ID number."

"Please enter the security code on the back of your card."

"Please enter your PIN."

"Please enter your 18-digit checking account number."

"Please enter the last 4 digits of your phone number."

"Please enter the day of your birth."




Anyway, there may have been a couple more "Please enter's," but needless to say, this was not what I was expecting when I called. I actually had to call back a couple of times because I didn't have all the numbers I needed (yes, I do know my birthday, thank you), but then the questions would change each time I called back! It was a miracle I was able to activate it. Except I think it made me change my PIN somewhere in that sequence, and now I have no idea what numbers I used. So I haven't actually used my newly-miraculously-activated card. But I had a good laugh.

Panama Pic

My latest adventure was to Panama City, and I LOVED it!

Here you can see me at the Panama Canal. I know the canal looks kind of small, but it's not. We saw a giant oil tanker go through. Did you know that some of the biggest ships that pass through the canal pay upwards of $300,000 a trip? And did you know that the biggest container ships that can go through right now hold 5,000 containers, and that the 15,000-container ships have to park offshore, unload everything and send it via rail? But sometime in the foreseeable future, they are going to complete an expansion of the canal so those ships can go through. They are GIANT!!! Also, they can fill and drain the canal lock you see there in the time it takes to fill or drain a bathtub, about 8 minutes. But it holds a million bajillion times more water than a bathtub! (Sorry, can't remember that statistic exactly).

Why else you should visit Panama someday: It is amazing. It is up-and-coming, has a beautiful shoreline/skyline with fantastic skyscrapers, there are great day trips nearby, the city has a low crime rate, great restaurants, and their currency is the dollar, so you don't have to figure out exchange rates and such. Lots of history, lots of good food, lots of roads getting paved and skyscrapers being built, AND it's the only latin american country where you can drink the tap water. I'm telling you folks, you really should go.

Bogota Pic

This is the view after riding the tram up to "Monserratte" in Bogota. Wow! What a cool city.

Argentina Pic

Well, this is kind of ridiculous, but at this moment, I am only able to upload one photo, per one post, at a time. So. This is part of the the "necropolis," Recoleta, in Argentina. Eva Peron was buried in one of these "tombs," just around the corner. Sorry, don't have all the vocab right, probably, but it was a hauntingly beautiful place.

Hello, Buenos Aires! (And Bogota!)

So, as my time here in Venezuela is nearing an end (less than 4 months left, folks), I feel like I've been making a mad dash to try and get the last of my South American trips in -- FUN! Traveling around South America is great, I highly recommend it. Just please register with the Embassy wherever you visit, just in case.

Even though my April trip to Buenos Aires and May trip to Bogota only lasted a few days each, I don't even know where to start with talking about the trip! Food was definitely important. Let's see......

In Buenos Aires, I ate: Proveltta (grilled provolone), submarino hot chocolate (steamed milk with chocolote bars dumped into it), beef (of course), medialunas (croissants), and LOTS of ice cream.

In Bogota, I ate: a Curuba batido (Curuba juice, which I have no idea what kind of fruit that is, mixed with milk, it was AMAZING), a street hot dog with a million things on it, including pineapple (I forwent the Cornish hen egg that could have also gone on top), rhubarb creme brulee (I don't have words to describe its fantastical-ness), pan de bono, several typical Colombian dishes whose names I can't remember, LOTS of hot chocolate, oh -- and hot chocolate with cubes of CHEESE put into it! This is something I've been waiting to try my whole life, since I was 8 years old and would put a hershey bar and a piece of cheese into my mouth at the same time, heaven. Cheese and chocolate are meant to be eaten together. But I digress.

Music is also important, I love when my life has a soundtrack. I loved running around Buenos Aires with songs from Evita in my head. And nearly every restaurant and taxi in Bogota had some great song or another playing, you know, a little Avril Lavigne and Cat Stevens here and there.

Um, I can't get any photos to upload to this post. Let me try creating a new post......hold, please.