our neighbor, the most racist man in the hood

i can't find the camera usb hookup.
there are lots of pictures of things that have
been happening in our little life.

but since the camera usb hookieupthingie is mia,
ill have to just talk.

Things are going well in the charles-bodtcher household.
(yes. to the dismay of my brother reed, i did
hyphenate my name. not because i am a feminist beezy.
not because i don't want to commit and take travis's name.
it's because im really proud of my charles name.
my dad's dad, papa charles, impressed something
on me at a young age.
he told us at a family reunion that we were charles's.
and not to ever disgrace that name. to keep the name proud and clean.
i tried my best to do that. family honor thing.
and i love my family so very much. and i like being a charles.
i like being a bodtcher, too.)

back to the charles-bodtcher household.
we are doing great.
travis has a new nickname for me.
"voldemort"
really travis, you shouldn't be so sweet to me. but he is :)
last night he made me dinner-
pork tacos, spanish rice, black beans, asparagus.
he bought me a brand new car. a black toyota corolla.
oh we were such a great team
with the salesmen. the good cop bad cop routine.
travis played bad cop, "im not paying that. it's too high"
i played good cop. flirt cop. "oh show me the pictures of your kids!
i see they got their good looks from you."
*winks. (don't argue with what works)
the salesman did score some points with me,
saying i look like katie holmes.
(i totally don't)
flattery works on me. try it sometime.
anyway, travis makes a big deal about calling it my car.
"sweetheart, can i borrow your keys?"
but he doesn't like for me to drive.
I did hyphen my name, but that doesn't mean i don't
like for him to drive, and open the door for me. :)
and still pay for dinner. even though both of our names
are on the account.

what else? well, we planted two blossoming pear trees
in the front yard.
thanks randy and julie, the great inlaws :)travis bought me a lilac tree. it's a hybrid of tree and bush.
i dug up all the weeds. and some bulbs,
before i knew what they were. oops.
spiders, as afore mentioned, are the bane of my life.
apparently spiders love gardens.
this was me yesterday in the flower garden.
"die! die! die! die!" *spears spider with shovel,
forgetting to just use shoes.
*sprays the spider killshot style.
hope the neighbors saw the show.

speaking of neighbors,
apparently the man across the street is a racist.
like i said, many of our neighbors are old. dying. deceased.
the man who lives across the street is older. grumpier.
so dave, the guy who sold us our house,
owns a house two doors down from us.
it's for rent. dave was allegedly showing the house
to a black guy who showed interest.
the old grumpy man across the street told dave.
"don't rent to that guy;
we already have enough foreigners in this neighborhood!"
ps there is one mexican man living on the street.
everyone else is pasty white. and
the black guy was totally american. not foreign.so then the grumpy guy says, "and this house you
sold to the bodtchers. it still looks
like the boydells live there."

**side note: the boydells were the super old people who lived in the house before us. don't worry they didn't die or anything. but they didn't really do much in the yard. or anywhere else.

so the grumpy old guy was sitting outside
when we were doing yardwork the other day.
i made a huge show of waving to him.
"how are you today" i asked, way too sweetly.
"doing fine. it's looking better over there." he answered.
"we're doing it all for you!" i shouted, smiling so sincerely.

travis and i are going to secret santa him this year,
see if we can't get him to lighten up a bit. :)

but that's life.

also, my brother reed got his mission call to sacramento, ca.
pretty excited about that.
and my brother chad is having a hard time.
please remember him in your prayers?

thanks love you :)

the landlocked lonlies

ok. so im happy. my life is full of love and laughing and excitement and family. i am not whining, nor am i complaining. but i may have made a mistake just now. i decided since i am waiting for my brother to get here so we can pick up my parents from the airport, i should read my friend alyssa's blog. but not the new stuff. the old memories from when we lived in hawaii. and reading through all of our adventures has made me terribly homesick. so if you don't feel like reading a homesick post, skip this one.

The thing that was so great about hawaii was the attitude of everyone living there. at least the students. the attitude of i can do anything i choose to do, such as living on this beautiful island. it was some serious empowerment. and i miss learning about different cultures; i miss the diversity and the languages. i miss the dirty, dingy, sandy, cockroachy normalness of restaurants. i miss choir. i miss choir so much that i cry sometimes. ha. singing in a choir at a church school allowed us to sing about religious topics. music + religion = feelings. my testimony of Christ grew leaps and bounds that year, not from hearing people speak but from singing with a group of people who loved me and who i loved back.

it's so ridiculous, but i miss miss miss eating lunch in the sea sider with all of us. i never really had a group of friends in high school. i never really had a sincere group of friends until i moved to hawaii. we were quite a group, the evans brothers and their unending knowledge of cars, (and willingness to drive you anywhere and help with anything) erika dick and her headbands, cute flannel, and music suggestions and unlimited knowledge of EVERYTHING, alyssa herTzinger playing the organ, laughing at the outrageous things she comes up with, and her sassy wit, bonnie begging for quarters to buy chili rice and telling her latest longboarding adventure, dustin making us all angry or at least irritated, ting shen and his camera and always cramming in the homework at the last minute, (oh i love him) ryan anderson interviewing us for ke alakai, (as long as we didn't say anything opposing wheelwright's views) getting in trouble for wearing a dress that is too short, jenna chidester being absolutely ridiculous, eating way too much ice cream, kaytie fav and keola always having healthy lunches from home, debates about politics, roxanne miller showing up once in a while and acting like she's a gift from heaven, (she is though) making disgusting meals out of the salad bar and random items from the sea sider, singing choir songs at the top of our lungs, pretending to be cold so we could drink hot chocolate, and so many other things i could go on and on about.

i miss the day to day things. i miss the friendships. i miss feeling like i could be anything i wanted to be. i miss the jokes about wheelwright's terrible reign. i miss the gossip. i miss the smell of hot rain. i miss saying aloha in sacrament meeting. i miss tutoring asian students on subject verb agreement. i miss my morning runs to the ocean, the smell of the ocean, the taste, the feel, the security, the sand. i miss living with erika dick so much. i took her knowledge and insight for granted when i lived with her. didn't realize how much smarter she is than most people. i miss brother belnap and his life lessons during choir and voice lessons. (and the slightly sacrelidge way i always made the analogy of him being God in my head) i miss katie and rachael and jane as my roommates, always cooking something good and teaching me something new. i miss longboarding to school and riding a bike to get around. i miss going barefoot to the grocery store (wait, i still do that, to travis's dismay.) i miss the bus. i miss my kayak very very much. i miss being crazy and hitchhiking. i miss eating way too many raisinetts and a pint of ice cream every few days. (my waistline does not miss these) hawaii helped me learn to love myself and i miss that too.

alyssa's blog said something i should learn to be better at doing. something about enjoying the present more than missing the past. for the most part, i think i am doing better with this. but just for this moment tonight, i am allowing myself to remember and to miss my home and place i love most, hawaii.