Reasons why it's cool to date [my] paraplegic...

aka.... why nurses and paraplegics get along
aka.... fascinating things you learn by dating a paraplegic
aka.... what I learned from dating [my] paraplegic
aka..... why super-strong girls should date paraplegics
Here you go:

1- Phrases like, "That's how I roll," and "we were just "rollin' by" become much funnier.
2- You never have to stand for the song in the middle of church. Moral support, you know.
3- You can sneak into church without your heels making that annoying noise on the cultural hall floor. You just sit on his lap and roll to the back.
4- You always, always have a chair. And you only have to look for one extra most of the time. It also doubles as an ottoman and/or laptop stand.
5- He can kick you in the face, stomach, or back and you can never get mad. (Because, it was a spasm. And he really didn't do it on purpose.)
6- You get wheelchair accessible seating at concerts. Which means ticketmaster picks out your seats individually. And they usually rock.
7- You can spend hours debating on if you are or are not strong enough to piggy-back him up the stairs.
8- And then one day you actually do it and you feel like the strongest girl on earth.
9- You can discern the quality and clarity of urine together and then steal his urinal to prove you can hold 850cc. (ok, this is the nurse in me)
10- Some of your most favorite memories just might be in a hospital where you fought for his pain medicine and fell asleep in his (oh so sexy) arms. And shared grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk. And got caught kissing by the doctor.
11- Your niece says things like, "Oh, I know what that's like; It's like when you wear your pants too tight and you can't feel your legs."
12- Meanwhile, he tells children the reason he can't walk is because he didn't eat his vegetables. To their horror.
13- Wrestling becomes a little more fair. Kind of. Even if he can bench you.
14- Making out on the beach becomes a feat of super-human-wheelchair-dragging-hormone-fueled strength
15- You know he loves you when he transfers into the pew at church at 1:02 to sit next to you.
16- Crazy stairs in Mexico= take-out breakfast on the Marina.
17- Acrobatic maneuvers involving removal of extra shirts to shield his hand from the banister while pulling the chair up the stairs. HOW DOES A FIRST FLOOR APT HAVE 5 STAIRS!?!
18- You start referring to yourself as a not-a-plegic
19- The phrase handi-cap scars = dirt marks on your white pants from wheelchair wheels
20- You learn to always park with space to the right
21- You can watch him sleep in ways that only people who have to be 1/3rd comfortable can
22- Dancing at nightclubs gets all of Vegas very excited.
23- You just might get out of tickets 4 out of 5 times.
24- You develop much less sympathy for the phrase, "I'm paralyzed." ('cause really it just means he doesn't feel like getting up.) (And yet, every time you laugh hysterically...)
25- But you still feel bad complaining about when your back hurts.
26- You learn to stop slowly at yellow lights. Something about balance.....
27- Parking rocks.
28- He teaches you weight lifting stuff you never knew. And you get to hand him the heavy dumbbells.
29- And maybe the best part of all, you can sit on his lap for HOURS. And he'll never complain.


38- (after bridget's) You get to learn the secret entrances to all the buildings. Through the back door, down the never-used elevator, around the corner, through the kitchen. You learn there's always a new way in. And you kind of feel like a VIP. or a spy.
39- You learn to slow down the pace just a little. Because while sometimes efficiency is awesome, other times life is about more than getting 12 things done in an hour....
40- And a girl who has spent quite a few years trying to do everything without help finally learns to ask for it. Yes, it just might be easier if the bellhop took all the bags and I didn't try to carry them all myself. Shocker.
41- "Awww crap! That's my leg I've been rubbing this whole time?"

p.s. I know there are more. I'll probably add to this for awhile... (And yes, bridget, you can, too).

We saw a rainbow.

There really isn't anything to report about Friday except we got home safely and I drove 25mph across the bridge in Page.
But I did realize that I forgot to blog the rainbow. One of the days in Park City, we saw one. We don't get a lot of rainbows in Arizona, so it was pretty novel for us. And yes, for awhile it was a double rainbow. And for a long while we could see it end to end, which I don't think I ever have. It followed us and we were all so cheesy and excited. And once there was even lightning behind it. It was really quite an exciting rainbow. And I loved it. We picked up Bridget and I quick pulled over to the side of the road to capture it :-)

Driving home. Kind of.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE (you know, with Jonmark waxing all "west side" while I'm focusing intently on the camera angle....)
The drive home was supposed to start at about 11 that morning. Which, due to the previous nights' events, was instead when we all woke up. I cleaned up a little and did some laundry while Jonmark made us breakfast. (Jonmark is usually wearing some holier clothes than these, but they were all dirty from our extended vacation. However, it was fun to see him in his WB). It was our funnest breakfast yet :-)

And Bridget and I finally got ONE picture together. Ok, two.


Basically, it was a great good-bye. So Bridget went to work, and Jonmark and I headed south. We had actually planned to go to the Manti temple for a few days by then, but, obviously, we had some detours. But we were still determined to go. First, we drove through Provo Canyon, which I love. The drive was beautiful and it was so nice. Once in Provo, we ran into a crazy storm that Jonmark called, "Repent Utah."

We also stopped at Sweet Tooth Fairy for cupcakes and cake bites and at Deseret for misc. mormon items like a book on tape :-)
The drive to Manti was quick, but we had started late, and we got there at 7:40, just in time to miss basically everything. But they snuck us in for sealings. The temple is GORGEOUS. It was built in 1888 and then remodeled in 1995. I commented on the staircases to a temple worker and she snuck me around the corner to the huge spiral staircases. They were totally insane. So so cool. The temple had such a homey feel with all the farmers and small town people there. And there were stairs everywhere so four old guys in white suits lifted Jonmark up about 10 stairs. It was such a cool site :-) Everybody there was so sweet.

















After that, we drove 3 hours to Kanab, where we stayed at this little Victorian hotel (yes, mom, with two beds....). It's Kanab's only boutique hotel and totally adorable. I even smelled all the furniture 'cause it smelled all new and solid and delicious. And in the morning we made waffles with our own little cups of waffle batter.

haha. You thought you were sleeping tonight.

The last night there, Bridget, her friend "Bama," me, and Jonmark stayed up forever talking about nutrition and my job and the church and tons of other fun stuff. And then crashed. A few hours later I was awakened by someone calling my name and asking for help. But it wasn't Jonmark. Bridget had a bloody nose. A BAD one.
As in, nurse practitioner or not, I could not get the clots to stop for over 45 minutes. No matter how far forward she tilted her head or how many ways we squeezed it, she was still swallowing blood.
We went to the hospital. Now, this is not the first time I've taken Bridget to the ER. She did puke incessantly a couple years ago when she was here in '08. But I think never at 2 in the morning.
Luckily, the PC hospital is beautiful and not that busy and we got right in.
Turns out, for major nose bleeds, you shoot 4 sprays of Afrin-type stuff in each nostril and then clamp your nose for ten minutes. And then repeat. And then spray 2 sprays in each one every 6 hours for the next 2 days.
Even then, Bridget still felt like she was swallowing a little blood, but it wasn't bad.
We got home at 5 in the morning, laughing really, because heaven knows we'd try to sneak in another crazy story before we left.

Ok, so maybe just one more.

We stayed another day.
Besides, when I woke up and came out into the living room, Bridget and Jonmark were engrossed in a very serious conversation. They looked up at me.
Bridget said, "Guess where your car is?"
"Towed." I said nonchalantly. And I was right. See, Bridget has an amazing quality of figuring how to get friends' cars towed. And I had let her park mine the night before right after joking about this talent. But, to be fair, I probably would have missed the tiny sign announcing I needed a decal as well. If only that boy would remember his little blue decal for me to use! :-)
Anyways, it made for a good excuse to check out some other exciting Park City sites, such as the NAC.
The NAC is short for the National Ability Center and they are basically a fancy-schmancy place for people with all abilities and disabilities to learn how to do sports. For example, they have programs for people who are paralyzed to snowboard and mountain bike and water ski and snow ski. And Jonmark maybe maybe used to be a kick-a snowboarder back in the day. And just maybe this could be the coolest thing ever.
It's a beautiful place and sounded amazing. They did need more than 2 hours' notice for us to get started, though. (Next time we're totally renting mountain bikes and heading out....)
The lady in charge of the ski and snowboard program is married to an amputee in the paraolympics and basically told Jonmark he should start prepping for 2012. Seriously, you would have thought she had a vision of the gold medal already around his neck. And she looked at me like I was in for the ride of my life. She was so totally cool.
Next, we had a secret "in" to go see the Olympic Ski Gym. As in, the gym where the Olympic skiers and snowboarders work out for like 5 hours a day. You know, with their anti-gravity treadmill and 54 degree "hot" tub and 104 degree hot tub and underwater treadmill and recovery kitchen and trampolines and half-pipes and, well, it was AWESOME. There were parts I knew Jonmark had to see, so once again, we hustled him up the stairs for a pretty sweet view.


Someday we're going back, and I'm going to be fitness tested in every conceivable way possible. I'm so excited.

AND....we stay another day

In theory, we were going to start driving home on Tuesday, so I could work Wednesday night without dying. But the thought of getting in the car again so soon, or leaving the gorgeous weather, killed me. So I called and got the night off work.
So we had the whole day to play even though Bridget had to work.
Our plan was to go to the Salt Lake temple since neither of us had ever been, but it was closed for cleaning starting, oh yeah, today. Bountiful was the closest temple so we went there instead.
But first we went to temple square to get a copy of Jonmark's patriarchal blessing, which his mailing address had caused to be sent back 3 different times. We pretty much walked the entire square to get there even though we realized later we had parked pretty much right next to the library where it was. Who knew?
And really, who cared? Temple square was gorgeous, the flowers were beautiful, and it was so nice just to walk around. We took pictures of each other just for fun....

And then, off to Bountiful! We were halfway to the temple before we realized we hadn't yet bought a white shirt for Jonmark so we made a quick detour to Ross for a shirt and two smashing ties. The weather was just a little overcast and oh so perfect. All the little neighborhoods on the way to the temple were so picturesque. The temple itself was so beautiful and nice, too. There is the most gorgeous little atrium when you first walk in from the parking lot with a little tree and flowers and is so beautiful and serene. We got done right as the sun was setting and with the mountains and the lake it was absolutely breathtaking. And one of those scenes that you just know a camera isn't going to do justice. So you'll just have to imagine. Or go there.
Bridget was waiting for us for dinner when we were heading back, but I had to make a quick pit stop.
See, I used to be a waitress at a place called Winger's. I have a lot of fun memories from this place, and I'm still convinced they make the best wings in the world. And I had seen one on the way to the temple, we ran in, ordered 5 wings and 2 chicken fingers with creamy buffalo, snapped a picture, and headed home.
Jonmark agreed they are the best wings ever, too! Whoo-hoo!

That night was dinner at Easy Street. Easy Street is a cute little restaurant downtown. We ate downstairs where a guy played piano and everything was amazing.
We had shrimp cocktail and crab legs for appetizers, delicious salmon, and chicken with figs for dinner. Afterwards, the regular piano player was done, and suddenly a super sexy guy rolled over to the piano and started to play. And basically, it was amazing, too.

Fireworks.

The night of the 4th was all kinds of exciting.
I woke up starving so Bridget ordered us some wings from Maxwell's, where she works. And a caprese salad. Yum.
Bridget got to meet her awesome home teacher who also happens to be Jonmark's friend (gotta love the mormon world) when we all met up at the Marriott where he works. He played the ukelele while we ate wings in the almost-rain. And then it was time to go upstairs for the fireworks.
One of the great many excitements of dating a paraplegic is getting to carry him up the stairs. Only once have we done this piggy back style which I still think is best and which still scares him half to death (yes, I am the strongest girl in the world). What's sad is that no one is ever around to capture the excitement entailed in such adventures. Until now.

(Do you love my tough-girl stance?)
I did learn, however, that taking your flip-flops off first is a very good idea. And that one of the sacrifices you make is your shins. Which are still a fascinating shade of yellow....
And then, off to the fireworks. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the Idaho Falls radio broadcast. I mean, really, fireworks are extraordinarily less-cool without music, a point I always forget until the blasts start. Mark my word...never again. Fourth of July playlist here I come!!
However, despite the lack of music, we did have our own photographer (i.e, Bridget- the one who has no photos of herself from this night and who didn't watch a single firework except through her lens). And after about 50 almost-perfect photographs, at one point, she screamed, and we ended up with this:
At which point we could have just gone home, but we detoured through the fitness center. Where Jonmark asked us to pause for this:

At which point Bridget asked some random people walking by to become impromptu cheerleaders:

And then we played pool for about 2 seconds until we ran into to the snottiest little 14 year old from Escondido ever, reminding me that my kids will never grow up in a place where children are that stuck up.
And then, we went home. And passed out. :-)
Happy 4th of July!

The 4th of July Park City Style

So on 3 hours of sleep, we rose and shined for the Park City 4th of July parade. Now, Park City has a great culture that consists of a lot of alcohol and skiing. Even at 11am. Which means that Jonmark and I ate berries and bagels and the guy next to us was totally bummed that Jonmark's berry drink was, in fact, just berries. It also means that Olympic skiiers are doing sweet tricks on a trampoline as they roll by and is about the coolest float I've ever seen. Jonmark and I got sweet skullcandy hats that unfortunately made me look like I might have been dealing with some severe chemo effects. Bridget, on the other hand, looked like a rockstar in hers.

We also got to meet Jordy, one of Bridget's besties up there, who bought us all lunch of hamburgers, hotdogs, and a stinking delicious oatmeal raisin cookie.
And, then, we took of to nap. Because while some people in the world can get by on 3 hours of sleep. I. Can't.

Park City- Day/Night 1

It is the rare person who wants to stay in Phoenix and bake for the 4th of July. I am not that person. Neither is Jonmark. It was 117 degrees on July 1st. We were baking.
It was then, with oh so much notice and planning, that we decided to go to Park City. Actually, I had decided to go to Idaho, and then my mom told me August would be better. And then Jonmark and I planned California and then Tahoe and then nothing worked out.
Except that I had this friend name Bridget whom I hadn't seen (really) in two years who was calling my name. And who told me Park City is awesome on the the 4th. So, Jonmark and I went to his niece's blessing and left Phoenix at 3:28p.m. on Sunday. Park City is a 12 and a half hour drive. Something I may have neglected to truly take into account.
It was actually one of the nicest road trips I have ever been on. We talked the whole way and only listened to the one cheesy 80's CD the whole way there. I learned all about annuities and life insurance policies and other random fascinating things.
And I even smiled just a few minutes after a cop informed me that the speed limit on the bridge in Page, AZ is actually 25 and not 57 and then gave me a white piece of paper to prove it. Turns out there are only so many times you can get pulled over with a sexy paraplegic as your passenger and not get a ticket.
So- we drove my (highly dependable, dearly beloved) Altima to Park City because it was somewhat more dependable than Jonmark's less-beloved Camry. This meant, however, that I would be driving the whole way because I have not yet come to the point where I feel the need to install hand controls in my car. Despite the fact that Jonmark insisted he could drive with a squegee handle, cruise control, and the e-brake. Um, no.
Brad, more than anyone, knows that I usually sleep about 50% of road trips. This one I slept 0%. Jonmark was an awesome road buddy. He only slept for 20 minutes so that I wouldn't be bored and could stay awake. So sweet...I don't think I could have done the same.
We arrived at Bridget's at 5am. We expected her to be asleep, but she said she was too excited to sleep and had just woken back up. She even painted a new picture for us!! Her apartment was darling, the air was so clean and perfect, and we all talked for an hour just getting to know each other (b-ridge and jonmark) and getting caught up (me and bridge). Sometimes it's great to be in Utah.

Caved.

So throughout the years, I've always said I wouldn't buy a Coach purse. They were silly, expensive, and I didn't like the "C"'s. And then Bridgette from work let me in on her secret sale. Apparently a few times a year, there is a 70% off sale on certain items per invitation. And Bridgette got that invitation. And I got two purses. To be fair, I really needed a white purse. And the metallic one looks awesome with my gold shoes. And the Coach logo is still pretty small....
Oh, and I love them :-)

Yes, I can tell the difference.

All right, so bigger things have happened besides this, like moving and spending the 4th in Park City, but I don't have all those pictures, so we'll start with this.
One of the things Jonmark in I have in common is our general pickiness about water. Mostly that we hate Arrowhead. We told our friend Scott that we could tell the difference between all the waters and he said we were crazy. So we put it to the test.
First, Jonmark and Scott went to the gas station and got these:

We sampled each of them and then Scott went into the kitchen and poured each one into a different glass labeled with a number (luckily my glasses break all the time so I have tons of different ones).
And then the taste test started.

We did pretty good. We only mixed up two, which somehow were Fiji and Dasani.
This is how they ranked:
1- Smartwater
2- Aquafina
3- Fiji & Dasani (oops)
4- Evian
5- Arrowhead
It was fun to finally prove that it's not all in my head. And I'm glad to know I like Smartwater for a reason other than the sweet bottle and Jennifer Aniston. :-)

"I've got beanies younger than those two!!"

So Jonmark went back to the hospital with an infection.
And then, they told him he needed IV antibiotics. For another week. Which meant they kicked him out of the hospital- and into a nursing home.
A nursing home.
Now, technically, it's a skilled nursing facility. But honestly, it's a nursing home. Not too many people in their thirties get to say that they have spent a night in a nursing home, but, yes, people, we both now have.
Let me back up. Now, this SNF is as nice as a SNF can be. There are no weird smells- the couches are new, the paintings are nice, and even the piano is all fancy-schmancy.
However, it's still not the typical hangout for people our age. In fact, it kind of feels like we're crashing their party. Especially, for example, dinner. It kind of felt like moving to a new school and trying to find a place to sit in the lunch room without disturbing the status quo. We kind of got looks from everyone like, "What the heck are THOSE two doing here?"
Here's us partying it up at dinner (Jonmark was not-all-that-impressed with my not-so-covert picture-taking skills)


Notice the awesome mural of the dolphins swimming in New Hampshire. Apparently they are not only cold-resistant up there, but also the size of whales. And lighthouses.
This is our meal. Delicious grape juice and delicious chocolate milk. And actually remarkably good enchiladas. We all know I can be picky, but I was truly impressed. When Jonmark asked for one more chocolate milk, the guy serving us (who I actually think was a few years younger than us) was like, "DUDE! It's not a prison; we don't ration this stuff out. You just have to ask- you can have as many as you want."
To which Jonmark replied, "Then why is the front door locked?" And then drank 3 chocolate milks. :-)


Lastly, was our delicious dessert. Luckily, Jonmark and I both love pears. Not necessarily do we love green water, but, ya know, in this case they came together.


In this case, our server simply dropped off the pears and said, "Don't even ask."
So we didn't.
I just ate the pears.
And dared Jonmark to "shoot" his green water.
Which he promptly did.
Best nursing home dinner ever.

The Cinders

After Vegas I actually went to work for 3 days, and then, it was time to play again. Off to Flagstaff!!
Ok, in case anyone missed it, Jonmark likes to ride.
It used to be dirt bikes and surfboards and snowboards....
And now it's quads.
And anything else that can compare.
Hence, off to The Cinders.
The Cinders is kind of like sand dunes made from a volcano. It's in Flagstaff which is awesome 'cause it's like 2 hours away and it reminds me of Idaho. The mountains and the trees are pretty much as therapeutic as the ocean for me, and it was heaven.
Now, my experience on ATV's consists of being about 14 and going on little trails at family reunions in Island Park. It does not consist of going up and over crazy hills and mountains. Or at least it didn't.
We did manage to get stuck within 20 minutes of our first ride. Which was a little scary as I unfortunately think the worst from all the people I've seen in the hospital. But luckily we found some cool people on sand rails to get us unstuck and bring us back down.
The second consisted of a lot of sightseeing in Flagstaff and driving around before we finally loaded up and got to riding. These are some of the beautiful places we saw:


And this was my view after Jonmark said, "You should video this. Hang on tight! I'm gonna haul!!" (It was probably the safest trail to do that...)

After a few hours, we headed back to camp. Some people in the ward had brought up his quad, and we ate dinner with them before heading back. It was delicious!
After dinner, one of the older guys offered to take us on a night time ride on his sand rail. We went up this hill:
Hundred Dollar Hill Video (not us)
Hundred Dollar Hill Picture
Yeah. It was a little crazy. The sand rail had a corvette motor and 510hp and we seriously hauled up this thing. Going back down I looked to the side and realized the world was at a 45 degree angle. A beautiful one. I totally felt like I was in a movie.
Anyways, we had a blast. If I knew how to make a dirt bike sound right here to sign off, i would. You'll have to imagine it instead :-)