5 Years Ago Today

Nels and I met 5 years ago today! Here's the story.

We were both attending BYU and it was an E-Business seminar. I was speaking with a recruiter from Cisco. Nels was there for the pizza, but eventually wandered over to the recruiting tables to get some free tchotchkes. After I was done speaking with the recruiter I turned around and started to walk away. Nels decided not to speak with the recruiter but instead came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "So are you in the business school?"

With that question, we plunged into an hour long conversation. I still remember how good looking Nels looked in his Abercrombie long sleeved T-shirt and long highlighted hair. After talking about school, where we were from and other things I decided that I needed to go and said, "well, nice to meet you." I was a couple of steps up the stairs when Nels said, "Wait! Can I get your phone number." "No," I said. Then I changed my mind when I saw his sad, sweet eyes. I gave him my number and then went to the library. I didn't get home until midnight (because I was on a date with another guy). When I got home my roommate said that Nels had called around 4 pm which was 2 hours after we met! I called him back from the library the next day. After another hour long conversation, which was pretty amazing because the phones in the library are supposed to only be for 10 minutes, Nels asked me out on a date for that night. So that's how we met 5 years ago.

Middle of January

Wow! January is just flying by. I haven't posted lately because my new position at work has been keeping me extremely busy! I'm enjoying the change of pace. Although, I'm relearning how to deal with stress. Nels is back in school too. So we are getting back into a routine around here. It's freezing cold here and I keep telling Nels that I want to live somewhere warm like Arizona! I've always lived in cold places so I think it might be nice to live somewhere nice and doesn't get below 30 degrees.

Besides work and school, we haven't done anything too exciting. I think January is the hardest month to live through because it's cold and dark most of the time. I just feel like staying indoors wrapped in a quilt and enjoying a good book, (which is pretty much what I have been doing!) Well, we did venture outdoors and took some pictures while we walked around campus. Here's some pictures of a true Boilermaker. The statue stands outside the football stadium. It's huge.

The sky was nice and blue that day. It might look nice and warm....and don't let Nels in his T-shirt deceive you! It was still a cold day! Nels rarely wears a coat and thinks everyday is warm. It must be that Swedish blood!

And here's the history on the Boilermaker. I hope you can read it. The flash on my camera kind of makes it hard to read.

So that was a fun date on campus.

I was just looking at some other pictures. Before Christmas, Nels and I tried to take our own picture to send with Christmas cards, but it didn't turn out too well. We used the timer on the camera, but we don't have a tripod. So we stacked books on a chair and then the flash was messing up the picture. I didn't really like any of the pictures enough to send them out. But for laughs, here's what we ended up with.

Testing, one, two, three.. "Wait, Becky aren't you supposed to be in this too?"

Oops I cut my head off, there's a huge light by me, and what is that....oh my fake smile!
Nels is thinking, "Are we almost done? How many do we have to take?"

Nels is thinking, "Maybe if I smile really big, we can stop taking these pictures!"

Oh well. We gave up after about 15 tries. Oh, I forgot to mention. Over Christmas break the MBA students had a competition for the best mustache. So a lot the students grew beards over break. Then they had judges decide who had the best mustache. Nels liked his beard so he decided to keep it and didn't shave it into a mustache. The school newspaper wrote a piece about it. Here's the link. Nels humored me and let me take a couple of mug shots of what his beard looks like today.

Well, I think that's about all. I'll post again when we do something exciting...which may be a while. : )

Barbeque!

The other night Nels decided to grill some hamburgers and pineapple. He loves to grill. We only have a little tiny one, but eventually we will get a nice big one for him. So it's January, snow's on the ground, it's freezing (like 2 degrees F), and Nels is outside grilling hamburgers. He's a die hard! The burgers turned out spectacular like always. Mmmm good!

Koldormer and Danish Pastries

So over New Year's weekend we were with Nels' family. His dad made Koldormer which is an authentic Swedish meal. Koldormer is a meat mixture (usually hamburger and rice with other stuff...) all wrapped in cabbage leaves. We helped wrap up the meat mixture and tie them up in the cabbage leaves. After that you fry them and bake them. They actually tasted pretty good. Here's a picture of what Koldormer looks like:

The best ones were the ones with green cabbage leaves instead of the white ones.

The Nyborg's (mainly Mom Nyborg) makes danish pastries every Christmas. They take forever to make, but taste extraordinary. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of all the hard work that went into making them and the final product. Quick summary of how to make them: 3 days of rolling them out, letting them rise, and letting the dough sit, before finally putting the filling in and baking them. All the hard work is worth it though when the light fluffy pastry melts in your mouth.

As you can tell the Swedish heritage that Nels' great grandparents brought with them to America is still going strong!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Better late than never to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We had a fun and wonderful holiday. Nels and I went up to his family's home in Valparaiso, Indiana. We enjoyed celebrating Christmas with them. Nels' sister Kierstin came from Portland, Oregon so the whole family was there. For Christmas Eve dinner we enjoyed filet mignon that Nels' dad made. All of the food was delicious, especially the homemade apple pies. (made with sliced fresh apples and not canned apples.)

The Nyborg's have some fun family traditions. One is to make sugar cookies for Santa. So we all decorated sugar cookies and put them on a special plate for Santa. Then all of us wrote letters to Santa. Anna-Lisa is the youngest at age 16 and Nels is the oldest at 31, but we all dutifully wrote our letters to Santa. The letters mainly consisted of an accounting of what we did this year and if we were good or not. Another tradition is to read the book "Twas the Night Before Christmas" before going to bed. Nels' dad reads the book out loud and all of the kids gather round. In the morning we all read our letters that we wrote for Santa out loud to each other and then magically Santa had replied to our letters so we read his response also. I think that is a fun tradition. Then Nels' dad reads the Christmas story about Christ being born. After that it's time to open presents, which is done one by one youngest to oldest.

But wait! One last tradition that is my favorite. The treasure hunt. After the presents are unwrapped from under the tree, Nels' dad says, "I think Santa left a message on the computer." The youngest, Anna-Lisa, starts first and the message is a clue. The clue leads to several other clues around the house until the last one leads to a present. Everyone has a treasure hunt and we follow each other when the person on the hunt is looking for the next clue. Nels' treasure hunt gift was a leather Samsonite briefcase, I received a Breadmaker! Yippee! I have been wanting a breadmaker for a long time. I am so happy I got one for Christmas. So those are some of the Nyborg traditions. We thoroughly enjoyed being there. Here's a couple of pictures.

Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Reading the Christmas Story before opening presents on Christmas Day.

Sven, the family dog, was involved in all of the celebrations too. I think pictures were taken of him the most. He's very entertaining! Even though Sven and I don't always get along he does keep things interesting.

I even got a video of Sven opening a present. He was very excited about his gift.

What would Christmas be without music? Anna-Lisa plays the cello. So I played the piano and she played the cello and everyone sang Christmas carols. It was a lot of fun and really brought in the Christmas spirit.

Besides napping and eating, we did play some Settlers.We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! I'll write more about the New Year celebrations later.