Once Upon a Time...

While reading the newspaper today, I came across a very small article that stated that one could win a night's stay in the Presidential Suite at the Grand America hotel and dinner for two if they submitted an account of their "love story" under 1,000 words. Having nothing better to do at work this morning, I crafted the following piece. I hope you enjoy it as much as David and I do. Even if we don't win the contest, I enjoyed myself at work for at least an hour writing it. :)

The Story of the Prince David and Princess Rachel

Once upon a time, in the far away magical land of the Lake of Salt, there lived a beautiful princess named Rachel. She was small and quiet, and had blonde hair and a fondness for unicorns. Like most of the kingdom's children, she attended a nearby school, and on her first day of kindergarten, she met the prince David. He was also small and blond, but not at all quiet. They quickly became friends and delighted in doing the things small children enjoy.

As they grew, they continued to play together. Many of the other girls were mean to Princess Rachel, but Prince David was always kind to her, letting her play basketball with the boys and act as the refueling station for his fleet of Startrek ships.

Upon entering junior high, Princess Rachel and Prince David's friendship began to develop into something more. Unbeknownst to one another, each harbored a secret love for the other. Sadly, the kind Prince David moved away and began attending a different school. Heartbroken though she was, Princess Rachel mustered the courage to continue on without him.

As the years passed, Prince David grew into a handsome youth, and the Princess Rachel an equally beautiful maiden. Their paths crossed occasionally throughout their adolescence, once at a wedding celebration and again on a trip to the land of the Yellow Stone. As each graduated from high school, they went their separate ways to schools of higher education.

It was at another wedding celebration that they fortuitously met once again. Princess Rachel was there to congratulate her favorite nurse from her childhood on her marriage, who also happened to be Prince David's cousin. Unbeknownst to Princess Rachel, Prince David was there and had spotted her from a distance. Princess Rachel did not immediately recognize Prince David, but had been for some time admiring his fine suit and ruggedly handsome features. Being a gentleman, Prince David reintroduced himself at once, and the pair resolved to renew their friendship.

As before, the friendship of Princess Rachel and Prince David grew into romance. They spent many wonderful evenings together, riding Prince David's roan stallion or walking through the Lake of Salt kingdom. However, the prince and princess were destined to be parted again. Prince David was called by the King to serve in a dangerous land filled with dragons, serpents, and all sorts of other horrible creatures. He would be gone awhile, but promised Princess Rachel he would return. She promised she would wait for him. And so she did. She wrote to him, and he to her, each looking forward to the day when they could be reunited forever.

After serving the King gallantly, Prince David did return. One night some months later, all their friends were gathered at a festival to watch pirates duel. The kind and handsome Prince David suddenly knealt down on one knee and gave Princess Rachel a box to open. The Princess Rachel at first refused, suspecting a trick, but Prince David persisted. Willing to oblige her love, Rachel opened the box to find a ring. The Prince David and Princess Rachel became betrothed, and all their friends celebrated.

Following strenuous planning and coordination, Prince David and Princess Rachel were married in a beautiful white castle, and journeyed to a southern kingdom to begin their lives together at last.

Birthday celebrations and some philosophical musings

David's 23rd birthday is this coming Saturday, and his family took us out to dinner on Tuesday to celebrate. We always encounter resistance from David whenever he is offered the slightest bit of generosity. His signature phrase is, "I'm okay." I've had to train him to respond with, "Yes, please" or "No, thank you." It's quite funny. I think it's because he doesn't want to be selfish or take advantage of anyone. I have to remind him that it's more rude to refuse someone's offer of generosity than to accept it graciously. Tuesday night was no exception. When asked where he wanted to go out to eat, he responded perfectly honestly with, "Burger King." Exasperated almost beyond words, his mother informed him that they would not be eating anywhere for his birthday that had a drive-through window or a dollar menu. With much prodding from me to come up with a decent place to eat, he finally settled on Buca di Beppo, and we were not disappointed. We got fried calamari, rigatonni, pasta with spicy shrimp, stuffed shells, and a dessert platter with three-layer fudge cake, cheesecake, apple pie, and tiramisu. We had so many leftovers to take home - I'm still working on eating the rest of the pasta for lunch at work.

Our post-birthday dinner activity was not as exhilirating, although I don't think anything could've topped that chocolate cake. :) David originally wanted to go see a movie, but we were all so incredibly full that we thought it better to just go home to watch a movie. David picked "District 9," a movie that I had wanted to see for its commentary on apartheid and ethics but was hesitant to because it's rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language. Lesson learned - never doubt woman's intuition. It was an extremely bloody, violent movie, and I have never heard the F-word so many times in my entire life - the transcendental message of the film was completely lost.

Probably to the shock of all who know me, I must admit that I do watch R-rated movies. Why, you ask? The single biggest thing my Humanities major has taught me is that beauty, truth, and meaning can be found anywhere, and that no single entity has a monopoly on any or all of these things. In my religious defense, the newest edition of the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet contains the following phrase: "Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way. Do not participate in entertainment that in any way presents immorality or violent behavior as acceptable." And therein is what I judge my movies by - not their rating, but their content and the message that it espouses. I would rather watch a movie like "Schindler's List" that is undoubtedly rated R for violence, but presents it as deplorable, not acceptable, and instead extols virtues like courage in the face of death, compassion, and sacrifice for the greater good, than a PG-13 movie that celebrates immorality, drugs, and a general lack of responsibility for one's actions and the accompanying consequences. I try to be a discerning movie watcher, no matter what the rating, and I will be the first to admit that "District 9" did not meet my own requirements for watching a rated-R movie. It was extremely disappointing, as it was one of those movies that could be fabulous, but somehow gets bogged down in the mires of bad acting, poor script, excessive profanity, etc. Another lesson learned - be more cautious in your judgment.

We live in a very gray world. There are still some black-and-white decisions, but most of it is very, very gray. The gift of discernment is needed now more than ever, and even the Church has recognized this. The admonition, "Don't see R-rated movies" has been removed from "For the Strength of Youth" because you can no longer judge the quality of a movie by its rating - you have to use your brain and examine the content itself. The missionary discussions are no longer organized numerically because those teaching should be guided by the spirit to teach what the investigator needs to learn. To me, it represents a move similar to the progression from the Law of Moses to the Higher Law that Christ taught. Instead of a list of extremely specific prohibitions and commandments, Christ taught that obedience is more about the spirit of the law; not about a checklist, but about the effect that the list has on the individual. "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:16-18). This is Christ's promise that he'll help us make the everyday decisions in life that seem inconsequential but actually have eternal importance. In a wonderful talk I highly recommend you read, Dallin H. Oaks said, "The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan by which we can become what children of God are supposed to become. This spotless and perfected state will result from a steady succession of covenants, ordinances, and actions, an accumulation of right choices, and from continuing repentance" (Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Ensign, Nov 2000, 32–34). The choices you make are not nearly as important as the effect they have on you, but as the choices you make are the foundation of what you will become, making correct ones - even about movies - are of eternal consequence.

Things I wish would stick around, and things I wish would go away...

I frequently get very bored at work. There's not very much to do a lot of the time, so I have to find ways to fill my 8:30 to 5:15 day. In my quest for activity, I saw the following pictures on a coworker's computer and knew immediately that I had to preserve them for posterity:

Not only are these glaciers extremely beautiful, they are also extremely endangered. David jokes that when our kids are older, we'll have to tell them what snow is. And polar bears. And glaciers. Just kidding. But seriously.

Something else that I use to occupy my times is the online version of the Salt Lake Tribune (the "Trib," as my husband affectionately calls it). I found the following article today, and promptly posted it on Facebook, printed it out to read to David later, and knew that it too must be preserved for posterity. I personally hope that one day we'll be able to speak about Glenn Beck with the same vehemence with which he maligns our Nazi socialist terrorist white-hating President.

Glenn Beck's stew of venom and fabrications
by Dana Milbank
Washington Post

The most terrifying thing about Glenn Beck? He's wholly disingenuous - he doesn't believe a word of what he's actually saying. He's an entertainer with views calculated for their shock value and sensationalism (which makes him a perfect fit for Fox News). The only thing more terrifying than Glenn Beck? The fact that people actually take him seriously. Today at work, we've had about a dozen people call to ask us if their money is insured because they've heard about a local credit union failing. Besides the fact that credit unions and banks are insured by different organizations, with a little research, I discovered the following newspaper headline: "Credit Unions May Be Scooped Up." As I read the article, I realized that the panicked customers calling us had only read the title and immediately feared that their money was in imminent danger. But what can you do when people give into sensationalist journalism and don't bother to check the veracity of an individual's claims or viewpoints? You can weep like Glenn Beck and be thoroughly disgusted that we live in a culture that values entertainment over accuracy.

New Year's Eve 2009

For New Year's Eve, David and I invited over a another of our couple friends to help us ring in 2010 in style. I made a bacon-wrapped pork roast with salad for dinner, and roasted chocolate-stuffed strawberries for dessert - yummy! We played a few board games afterwards, and had a great time.

David had a few fireworks left over from a surreptitious trip to Evanston this past summer, so we had fun in the back yard lighting sparklers and smoke bombs.

David decided to try throwing the smoke bombs into the snow to see what happened, and it looked pretty awesome. The bombs would sink through the snow and slowly begin emitting violent shades of color that spread across the snow.

Happy 2010, everyone! I hope everyone has a fabulous year!

The Quintal Family Christmas

On Christmas Eve, David and I attended his extended family's Christmas party. After we ate delicious food, we played a highly entertaining gift exchange game. We each brought homemade gifts to give to one another, and took turns picking out gifts to unwrap and steal. David's grandma made a U of U quilt, which quickly became the coveted item by everyone in the room but me. :) David made the joke that, if he got the quilt, he'd be welcome to sleep under it as much as he wanted to on the couch.

After unwrapping our Christmas pajamas at my parent's house, we went back to David's parents' to unwrap our Christmas gifts from them. There were two surprises of the night. For those of you who don't know, David's favorite Christmas movie is "A Christmas Story." He watches it at least half-a-dozen times in the course of the month of December and loves every minute of it. Knowing this full well, his younger brother, Michael, gave him a Red Rider BB Gun. Can you tell David's absolutely thrilled?

The following is the next surprise, the larger one, in my opinion. Larry and Ruth, my in-laws, had already given us a generous chunk off our rent for December, which I assumed to be our Christmas present; not so! They gave us a new computer!

After the unwrapping of presents was complete, the boys quickly headed out into the below-freezing temperatures to try out David's new gun (to Ruth and I yelling, "You''ll shoot your eye out!"). They even climbed over the dog fence to spray paint a nice black target in the snow. Having never shot a gun of any kind in my life before, I decided to give it a go as well.

When Larry told me I looked just like Sarah Palin, however, I promptly put the gun down and went back inside.

The Fredrickson Family Christmas

After eating dinner and playing games with David's extended family, he and I went to my parents' house to unwrap our Christmas pajamas.

After opening gifts with David's family, we returned the following morning to have Christmas with my family. My mom made Christmas quiche and wonderfully yummy cinnamon pull-apart bread.

Every year my mom sets up a treasure hunt that has us all tearing through the house in search of clues and hidden presents. I hope that she realizes that she'll be doing this until the day she dies. We have done it every year but one, when she erroneously assumed that perhaps Jared and I had gotten too old and considered it childish; silly woman. :) Anyway, all morning long Jared had been complaining that he had been hearing a mouse in his bedroom. As Jared has faulty hearing at best (most teenagers do), nobody really paid him much attention - until I opened my chocolate orange at the end of the hunt to discover the orange foil completely gone and the orange itself covered in tiny bite marks.

Jared, finally vindicated, spent the afternoon repeatedly saying, "I told you so!" Well, at least the mouse had a good Christmas, too.

Our Talented Cat

Whilst decorating the Christmas tree (which we never did finish decorating, sadly), David and I discovered the incredible musical abilities of one of our cats, Chloe. In case you're wondering, no, David was not squeezing or otherwise forcing the cat to speak, and she did this three times before I had the sense to film it.

Christmas Cookies

One of the Christmas traditions that I am attempting to start is the decorating of Christmas cookies. So, armed with dough, cookie cutters, and sprinkles, David and I joined my family at their house for a night filled with sugar and Christmas spirit.

Little did you know that David is extremely adept at decorating cookies, although he likes to decorate them before they go into the oven. In an impressive display of neat-fingeredness coupled with a rare amount of patience, he proceeded to produce the following works of art:

Unfortunately, David and I ended up cutting, baking, and decorating the majority of the cookies - apparently my parents and brother didn't understand that this was meant to involve full family participation. As it was, my mother lent her decorating skills to the task, my father ate the dough, and Jared lay on the couch in a state of characteristic teenage semi-consciousness. Oh well, better luck next year.

Temple Square

Around the middle of December, David and I went downtown to see the lights on Temple Square. While always gloriously beautiful, they pulled out all the stops this year and made the display larger and more diverse than ever before.

In previous years, this beautiful white stone nativity scene has occupied a single spot on the lawn; this year, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were placed in the middle of the reflecting pool directly in front of the temple, with the shepherds and wise men placed on either side of the pool on the grass.

One new addition (I should say hundreds of new additions) were these painstakingly beautiful luminaries. They were placed on the low walls surrounding the gardens, and each said Merry Christmas in a different language. Others were purely decorative, like the one below. In addition to the paper luminaries, there were dozens of metal ones as well, each showing different scenes from Christ's life.

The area around the Church Office Building was also included in the display this year. About a dozen nativity scenes were placed on various bits of lawn, each representing a different culture. The trees were all still characteristically covered in lights from root to tip, but they functioned this year as a backdrop instead of a focal point. The cultural nativities were my personal favorite. Besides representing the increasing diversity present in the Church and its worldwide growth, they carried a message of openness and acceptance, in essence saying that the Church acknowledges that the birth of the Savior was an incredible gift to the entire world, meant to benefit every individual, regardless of culture or religion. It was a beautiful message, and one that I personally hope the Church continues to spread.

Let it Snow

David and I have been living up Emigration Canyon with his parents since May of last year, and it's been working out wonderfully so far. It's really nice because it stayed at least 10 degrees cooler up here during the summer, the leaves actually started changing color in September (when they're supposed to, in my mind), and we're pretty much immune to the nasty inversions the Salt Lake valley gets in the winter. What I was not prepared for, however, was the snow. At the beginning of December, it snowed about 2 feet at our house!

I had never seen this much snow outside a ski resort in my life! All of the snow up here has definitely made driving an adventure. David works in Park City, and Parley's Canyon rarely gets plowed decently, so he takes the Jeep up there most of the time, which leaves me the 2-door, 4-cylinder Yaris to go down the canyon. I have spun out more times than I care to admit, and have probably thoroughly annoyed all of the other canyon residents lucky enough to have 4-wheel drive who are also just trying to get to work. Oh well - I go 20 miles per hour and drive in second gear and do just fine.

Halloween 2009

Yes, yes, I realize that it's January, but I just got these pictures (finally!) onto my computer and wanted to post them!

Anyway, David and I hosted a Halloween party in October, for which we made mountains of food and decorated the house like mad. Halloween is tied with Christmas for David's favorite holiday, simply because he gets to decorate the house. :) Here are a few pictures from our party:

I tried out a lot of Halloween crafts this year, and one of the ones I loved the best were these pumpkin candles. They're surprisingly easy to make - you simply use a drill to hollow out the middle of the pumpkin and drop a small tea light inside. I loved them because they looked cool, and David loved them because he got to make a craft using a drill.

David and I like to dress up as a couple, and this year we were Cleopatra and Marc Antony. With a lot of help from my mom, I made both our costumes, and we were the self-appointed winners of our own contest. :)

For food, we made double chocolate chip cookies with Reese's Pieces, witch's fingers, caramel pecan twists, chocolate noodle spiders, 7-layer dip, and swamp water punch.

We're attempting to make this an annual tradition for our friends, and also to make the parties themselves so fabulous that no one will dare not come! We definitely had a better turnout this year than last, when three people total came, and at different times. Since we're not in Provo this year, several of our friends who couldn't make it down to Utah county made it up the canyon.