The Candyman

"I hope it's alright if I tell you a story," this is what the flight attendant told the passengers on our flight just before take-off in Orlando yesterday. Since we had no where else to go and all electronic devices had properly stowed in the off position, we all listened. Here is her story.

"Have any of you been able to meet celebrities in random, day-to day settings? It's always fun and a little surprising isn't it? It's really neat for us flight attendants when we're able to have a well known politician, athlete, or actor on our flights. But for us, we have a different type of celebrity, people that you might not recognize or know - that we love to see on our flights. One of those "flight celebrities" is Mrs. Fields, of Mrs. Fields Cookies. We always love it when she flies with us since she brings a large box of warm cookies to share with the flight crew. Another celebrity has been popping up over the last few years, known as "The Candyman." Now until today, I had never met him, but I'd heard rumors of him from all my co-workers! But today I met him on this plane, and he brought a duffel bag full of candy bars!"

...at this point the kids sitting behind me started to get excited and I even heard a few shouts for joy from the back of the plane. The flight attendant then corrected herself...

"Oh, well he only brought enough candy bars for the flight attendants, sorry!! But I just thought I'd let you know that we have a flight celebrity on board, and I was hoping you would all give a round of applause for Patrick, in 27C!"

At this point the entire flight started clapping for Patrick the Candyman (other than a few boos from kids who wanted candy) and the man sitting next to me sank down in his seat. I was sitting in 27A, there was no one in 27B, meaning I was next to the most popular man on the plane. He was visibly very embarrassed and was not expecting to get this type of response from his gesture.

I clapped for him and then asked him the common questions one might ask:

Me: So you've been doing this a while now?
Patrick: Yeah, for the past few years - but I've never had them announce me over the speaker! I really was not wanting this kind of attention.
Me: Well, I would switch you seats, but people might not think I'm Patrick, the "Candyman."
Patrick: Yeah, its OK I guess.
Me: So do you work for a candy company?
Patrick: No, I just pick up candy bars on my way to the airport, in fact I think I'll have a few extra for my connecting flight this evening, so would you like one? I also bought an extra sandwich if you're hungry.
Me: Wow, you're too nice, I actually bought a sandwich too, but I'll take a candy bar!

After we took off, got at our "cruising altitude," Patrick ripped off his seat belt as soon as the sign told him it was OK to do so. He then got the duffel bag out of the compartment above the seat. He opened it up and placed it on the empty seat between us, allowing me to see the variety inside. Now I knew why the flight attendants loved him so much. These weren't just normal sized candy bars. He had those long packs of 10 fun size candy bars, and huge king sized bars and it was every kind of candy bar you could imagine! I picked a 10 pack of Resses Fast Break fun sized, and thanked him repeatedly.

During the flight, all the flight attendants that went by stopped to chat with Patrick, share their appreciation and then went on their way with a big smile on their face.

Now, I realize this really isn't that huge or exciting of an airplane story, I'm sure there are much more exciting adventures that you all have had on airplanes. But this experience really made me stop and think. This man truly had brightened the day of all our flight attendants, he'd made them all happy. They all smiled as they walked past and stopped to chat with us. Patrick didn't really look like he had tons of money, first he was sitting in coach with the rest of us! He didn't have a fancy briefcase, suit, shoes or cuff-links, he just wore khaki pants and a polo shirt and listened to his visibly beat up iPod during the flight.

But honestly, have any of us ever thought, "hmm, I'm going on a flight today, what could I do to make it a better experience for the crew on the plane?" I don't know about you, but I've never thought about their happiness at all - I'm just thinking about me me me! Patrick, however, took a step back, and looked outside himself, thought out of the box. He was compassionate enough to bring another piece of luggage for their happiness.

Since I'm currently "voluntarily unemployed", I have quite a bit more free time. Lately I've been doing lots of reading, lounging by the pool, and relaxing, aka me time all day. But I really think I need to step back, look around myself and look at those around me. How can I help them? How can I make their day? What could I bring to the children in my primary class or the ladies I visit teach to put a smile on their face? There is so much I could do to help out!

At this point, I really don't have a giant plan or any huge service project I'm about to begin. But I really need to change the way I think about life. Instead of what should I do for me, I need to think, what could I do to bring joy to others, make a large difference in the world. I don't have any great ideas at the moment, but I'm going to think about it, and hopefully start thinking not only compassionately, but creatively, like Patrick of 27C.

Salt Lake City...Salt Lake City...here I come!!

Tomorrow I'm headin to SLC for the long weekend. I hope you all realize how OBSESSED I am with Pioneer Day!?! I made Tyler fly me out because I couldn't stand to miss the parade and all the festivities on the 24th of July! ...jk, my name is not TAMN... I'm actually going because one of my best friends, Carly Higginson, will be married to Mr. Dave Sessions on Saturday, the 25th.

(photo "courtesy" of Ashley Swapp)

**2009 truly has been the "Year of Weddings" for me! We started with Tyler's sister Jamie in January, then Tyler's brother Travis in May, then my other best friend Jill at the end of May, now Carly in July, and there will most likely be another major wedding later this year that I can't discuss just yet :-)

So I've been trying to find all the pictures I have of Carly and me on my laptop, but sadly I only have pics from the past couple years so I don't have many of our 9 year history. Carly moved 2 streets away from me right before 9th grade. I still remember the first time she and her younger sister Mallory came to our house to swim with Paige and me. From that first swim outing, we've come a long ways. Through highschool we pretty much did everything together and had almost identical school schedules in high school. Then we went up to BYU together and were roommates our Freshman and Sophomore Years.

(Oreganos - May 2006)

(Jill, Carly and I at our sisters graduation, May 2006)(My crazy 21st birthday party, yes that is martinellis)

(Sophomore Roommate Reunion, September 2006)

Right before Tyler and I were married, she left on her mission to Brazil. But even though she wasn't there physically, her mom brought a little piece of Carly to the wedding! The girls (I think Megan Runyan) carried this picture of Carly around the Temple grounds and at the wedding dinner so she could be in the photos haha!

(Gateway Mall, July 2008)

(Freshman Roommate Reunion, January 2009) Best Roomies Ever!

(Jill's wedding, May 2009)

She got home from her mission last summer and I flew down to Mesa to welcome her home! Now, just one year later she's getting married and luckily I'm able to attend! Tyler couldn't miss work this week, so sadly I'll be taking the trip alone - but I'm excited to go to my "best friends wedding." She and Dave are going to make a great couple!

And the rest of the time, we're here!

So, with all the traveling we've done lately, I just realized that we haven't even posted pictures of where we spend the majority of our time - our home in Orlando!

We've been living in this townhouse since late March, ever since our moving van came a week early and both Tyler and I were out of the state. (I know I posted a very dramatic post about that back then but I thought you should know I got over it). Since then, we've enjoyed our new rental home and have been enjoying the bigger space compared to our other one bedroom apartments in Utah!

Here's a quick little tour of the place so you know where we are (I guess this is a little more specifcially for our familes who have been wondering what our new place is like. Sadly, I don't really send pictures in emails anymore, I just blog them - so here it is)

Since we were coming from a one-bedroom apartment, we have never had a living/dining room before! At the moment it's basically empty - kind of pathetic that this is what people see when they first walk in. But since we're just renting the place I'm waiting to fill the room for a while...

Here is our lovely family room with proof that I sometimes watch girly movies on TV while I'm home alone... Kitchen is quite a bit bigger than we've had, but still small enough that Tyler and I bump into each other quite a bit!
We even have a tiny little backyard that leads out to our garage. There's not much more grass outside of this photo's borders, so pretty much the covered patio is our back yard. As you can see at this point we're not really using ours for much more than random trash accumulation. But it's so dang hot right now, we don't really want to be outside anyways!We do, however, have a family of lizards living in our backyard - they just had babies so now there are about 15 tiny lizards on our screen walls at all times. They're supposed to be killing the bugs out there, but I wish they'd do a better job...Upstairs we have 3 rooms. This is the view from our room that I wake up to every morning, I actually really like it because it's always so sunny.Our 3rd bedroom, really does not get much use. It was empty for a while, now we have a bed in there that someone gave us for free! So guests, we are ready for you!

(Here is the lovely view out of the "guest bedroom" and as you can see we don't have too many neighbors to the east.)

We have the "back entrance" to Disneyworld just 3 miles south of us, Sea World and Universal Studios 15 minutes away, just an hour drive to the Atlantic Ocean, & an hour to the Gulf of Mexico. Seriously, come visit us - we'd love to have you!

Al Capone - Rainbow Heaven - Alligator Alley - FBI Headquarters

So this weekend was lots of fun! This is Ty, by the way. We've added pictures below to document the festivities. It worked out real nice - our total tab for the trip was $225. Oh the beauty of corporate "business trips"!!

So here is the story.. I get occasional free hotel nights after spending a certain amount of nights at hotels, so we decided to go somewhere for the weekend using our free nights. The only place in Florida we really hadn't been yet was Key West. So we checked out the website and booked two nights. I set it up so we were in Miami Thursday for work and then Ft. Myers on Monday and spent the weekend in the Keys.

Last time Rach and I went to Miami, we drove by the Biltmore Hotel - a famous hotel for all of the history and characters who frequented the place back in the 20's and 30's. It was an Al Capone favorite (so now we've seen his prison and playplace). We had a great time enjoying the ambiance, architecture, and the glorious pool. It is the largest hotel pool in the continental US.. That night we went to Houston's and had our favorite Key Lime Pie (pic below)!! If you have a Houston's in your town please go and try it!! Unreal stuff..

The next day we made the drive down to the Keys (very slowly) but were excited to see all the characters that thrive in Key West. It is known for the alternative lifestyle crowd (Rainbow flags everywhere) - but we had a great time eating cuban food, breakfast at Blue Heaven, and watching dolphins! It was my 1st time seeing wild dolphins up close and it was a blast..on the same trip we got to hop in the water and snorkel with some nurse sharks, stingrays, barracuda and other interesting sea friends.. It was definitely "Under the Sea" Little Mermaid worthy. We also enjoyed the Key West sunsets, street shows, and crazy shops.

The 7 mile bridge!!

Rach loved this street.. Lonely St. houses the Heartbreak Hotel

Blue Heaven Breakfast - Blueberry Pancakes.. gorgeous place!!

Key West Cemetery!! The hilarious things people put on their graves!! Check em out!!

On our way back from Key West we decided to take the scenic drive thru the Everglades. We saw multiple Alligators, and even saw a HUGE turtle crossing the street. We died when we saw a "Panther Crossing" sign.. of all the random..who knew Panthers lived in the Everglades. It was a great drive - you always had to your eyes open!

On Monday, I got to check out an FBI building that was just being completed and they needed help setting up their lighting controls system. So I got to go and commission the system. It was crazy seeing interrogation rooms, bulletproof glass, fire proof walls, and all the rooms with combination locks just to get in. The FBI doesn't mess around!!

Anyway, we had lots of fun this weekend checkin out new things and making memories.

Another Week...

One week later, we still haven't spent the night in a hotel or used a suitcase. Other than one day trip to Tampa, we've spent another week in Orlando. Some of the highlights included:

1. Babysitting. Yes I know what you're thinking, babysitting - a highlight? Really? Well it's fun when you get to hang out with 2 girls ages 6 & 8 who are tons of fun (and when you have nothing else going on in the middle of the day!) We went swimming, played games, and watched Horton Hears a Who - which I had never seen and really like!

2. Epcot. We went to Epcot Thursday night, just to check out all the places we didn't see last time. I love the "Great Britain" area of course - it's home to Pubs, Classic Red Phone Booths, they sell all the best London Treats, and just has a classic London feel.

Then we rode our favorite ride at Epcot -- Soarin - I know they also have it at California Adventure in Anaheim, but I hadn't been on it until we moved here. It's worth the long wait, or at least get a "fast pass."

3. Earl of Sandwich. Some of our new friends in Orlando introduced us to this great sandwich shop in Downtown Disney - website here. ~They have locations across the country~ Since they "invented the sandwich and have been eating sandwiches since 1762" they definitely know how to make a good one! This really gave us a reason to love sandwiches again after all those terrible five dollar footlongs we've eaten recently.

4. B.J's Pizza. Those from California and Arizona all love BJs deep dish pizza and pizzookies! Tyler and I both assumed BJs was just a west coast thing, but we were excited when we realized there's a location right here near Windermere. There are only a few in Florida, and none back east, so we're lucky to have one nearby. We enjoyed the Oreo Pizookie and the Southwest Pizza, highly recommend both.

5. Time with the sister missionaries. We have 2 sister missionaries assigned to our ward and yesterday I drove them to their appointments and went along with them for the afternoon. Since I didn't serve a mission, it was a good experience for me to get a sneak peak into the life of a missionary. The 2 missionaries are both only one year younger than I am, and are both from Utah County, so I fit in almost a little too well haha. During the 3 hours it rained the whole time, we got barked at by scary huge dogs, had some things fall through, but also got to testify about Jesus Christ, the Restored Gospel, and Living Prophets. My favorite part was singing I am a Child of God to a Hindu man in his garage. I hope he could feel the spirit that I felt. Info

Well, the no travel thing isn't lasting much longer. Tomorrow Tyler and I are driving down to Miami. He scheduled some appointments for work during the afternoon, but like most people, he has Friday off, so... for the Fourth of July Weekend, we're going to the Florida Keys! I've always been intrigued by this place, but I never thought I'd be able to visit. It's crazy that you can drive to an island, but the Florida Keys are all connected by the Overseas Highway.

We saved up some free hotel nights Tyler earned through work, and so we will be chillin at the Holiday Inn... Hopefully on this beach, enjoying the Fourth of July Festivities!!
Hope you all have a lovely Fourth of July Weekend!!!

A Week in Orlando

It might be hard to believe, but Tyler and I haven't left Orlando since my last entry! We didn't have any vacations or work trips to attend, so we actually spent a normal week here in town. Since we were around all week, we were able to go to Disney World again on Saturday. We've now gone to the 4 major parks (Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios) so we went back to Magic Kingdom (classic) in the morning and then went to one of the water parks, Blizzard Beach, in the afternoon. I had visited this park with my family when I was 16, so it was fun to visit it again with Tyler.

It's getting very HOT here now that summer has arrived, so the Water Park will be the perfect way to spend the sizzling afternoon hours.

This water park puts all the ones in Arizona and Utah to shame! Besides the wave pool and lazy river, it has 3 slides that are all over 10 stories high and tons of other really fun slides that you ride down in tubes or toboggans (pictured above). Since it has the theme of a transformed ski resort, the whole place is themed with snowmen, santa, wooden lodges, and even a ski lift to get you up to the highest slides.

We had a blast at the park and we highly recommend it to our friends and family who come and visit!

Other than our Disney day, we've been just hangin around in Windermere. Tyler is making visits and giving trainings around Orlando and he's also studying for a certification test he's taking, called LEED. (It relates to construction, and sustainable "Green" building.) He's still rockin the minivan and he's already put 11,000 miles on it in 4 months.

I'm setting up things around the house and looking for a new job. My job with my Salt Lake City company has come to an end, and so I'm now officially voluntarily unemployed. Even though I wasn't laid off, I feel like I can relate to the other thousands of people around the country! Job hunting right now is HARD! It's obviously not the best time to be looking for a job, and Orlando's economy is especially not doing too well either since its based primarily around travel and tourism. I've had a few interviews (mostly over the phone) but nothing has panned out quite yet. I'm only looking for accounting jobs, but either part time or full time... so wish me luck.

Living Life to the Fullest

So the past 5 months have been busy for the Jennings family, but if you've been keeping up with the blog, you already knew that! But today, June 15th, life looks like it might start to settle down. Tyler is out of town tonight, but he’ll be returning tomorrow and then neither of us has any plans to leave the state for at least a month. That’s saying something for us! When I got home from Atlanta on Saturday (yes we went on another work trip – sorry I didn’t blog about it yet - here's a couple quick photos from the amazing aquarium there)

Anyways, when I got home from Atlanta (which is only a 6 hour drive!) I was happy to put my suitcase AWAY and not leave it out on the floor of our bedroom.

Kali, a couple posts ago you told us you didn’t know anyone who travels/has as many adventures as us, and that we’re living life to the fullest. It hadn’t really all set in with us until we read that and talked about it. We obviously realized we were traveling and busy, but because we were so busy we didn’t think much about how unique these experiences really are. We truly have been blessed to see so much of this part of the country and experience these adventures together! We really have been taking advantage of this time and living to the fullest.

Neither of us has ever lived like this before – by “like this” I mean “out of a suitcase” or “from hotel room to hotel room.” Between school and jobs, we couldn’t afford to take more than a couple vacations a year. Luckily, living in Orlando, we’ve been able to work our traveling into Tyler’s work. It’s been great to take advantage of this time before we have kids to travel and see the country together. Add in trips for a brother’s wedding, another brother's high school graduation, and a family trip to Mexico along with our work trips – and you have our year in a nutshell thus far.

In 2008, I finished up my degree at BYU and began working full time in the stressful busy world of public accounting. The only trips we went on last year was one weekend in Vegas, 4 days at Huntington Beach and then AZ for the holidays. I think we went on more trips in the first 3 months of this year! I just looked at Tyler’s Facebook profile, at all the different “Mobile Photo Uploads” he’s posted from this year. There are 64 pictures, from January 14th to today. To name a few we had pictures in:

Provo – Alcatraz – Floor seats @ U/BYU Basketball – Meeting Dwight Howard – Tabernacle in SLC – Tampa – Baltimore – Lots of Golf Tournaments - Palm Beach – Talladega – Alabama – Mississippi River – Daytona – St. George – Miami – Disneyworld – Jacksonville – Mobile – Cancun – a town called Jennings, FL – Atlanta – and today, NASA

I really doubt we’ll ever have another 6 months like this again! In the coming years Tyler will be able to work more from home, but since he’s new he needs to get the face-time with the clients and sales reps so he can get to know them. I’ve been working for my CPA firm in Salt Lake remotely from Florida, so I’ve been able to tag along for all these trips. We're hoping to start a family soon, but until then I'm able to tag along pretty easily.

So all in all, 2009 has been a very exciting year for us. But now most of the traveling is over and its time to actually settle down and become residents of Orlando!

PS I really hope I don’t look like the Seriously So Blessed Blog with all these posts about happy life and fun trips… I promise, we have bad days too! Also I’m not pregnant with twins or president of any wives’ clubs or going to the Spa and “Anthro” weekly ... well not for now anyways!