Moving from Superior to Boulder

Out with the Old Place.....

In with the New One.....

It's official! We are finally in our new apartment! This is our 4th move in 3 and a half years of marriage! I wonder where we'll move to next year- JUST KIDDING!

The next time I move, it will be back to Utah! I'm on the count down. Only 24 months to go :( Moving away from family is totally overrated in my opinion.

However, it wouldn't be normal day in the life of Tristin and Juanique if the entire moving process actually went smoothly.

Last week Thursday morning (May 20th), I received a text from my boss saying that his wife was in labor which meant no work for me that day. Good news because we had to be out of the apartment by Friday night, so I could spend the day helping with the packing and cleaning. Tristin and I are loading boxes into our cars when suddenly I hear a thumping noise. I go to check it out to see Tristin laying on the floor with that deer-looking-in-the-headlights look. He then tried to move but couldn't because he was overwhelmed with pain....Uh Oh!

I had no idea what had happened. Tristin's back had obviously been injured and he couldn't walk, stand, move, NOTHING! Any type of motion was overwhelmingly painful to him. REMEMBER, we're suppose to be moving our stuff during the next 24 hours! *GASP*

6 hours later we get him to a Chiropractor. Getting him from the apartment to the car took about 30 minutes. I almost cried I was so scared for him! It turns out he sprained a facet joint in his lower back (facets are parts of the vertebra in your spine), and was on strict bed rest. He was going to be anyway seeing that he could hardly walk, never mind carry things.

The next day (Friday) I had to be back at work. Thankfully, 4 of Tristin's friends from school, one from church and the Elders helped him move all our boxes and furniture so he didn't have to really strain. We then spent the next 3 days unloading, setting up, painting and nesting into our new place. I definitely felt like the man in our relationship that weekend with moving the boxes, carrying the heavy stuff, and having Tristin organize the easy and light things.

End result: We love the new place. It feels like home. It's bigger, cheaper, closer to my work and Tristin's school, has a GREAT view of the Flat Irons, and we live IN Boulder. I love Boulder!

Latest picture of us at the Boulder Creek Festival

View from the living room! There are hiking trails just up the road from our apartment!

I Loved My Weekend

So here's a list of a few things I LOVE LOVE LOVE:

1) Family
2 )Friends
3 )HOME
4) Weddings
5) Great Weather
6) Dressing up and feeling girly
7) Reading
8) Pedicures
9) Sleeping in

I got to have a fat dose of ALL these things this past weekend! How lucky am I?

Brienne's wedding was STUNNING. The weather was perfect for her happy day and she looked amazing. As soon as I see her wedding pictures I'll post some up. For now I'm stuck posting iphone pics because we forgot our proper camera.



I got to, do my hair, dress up all weekend, hang out with family and celebrate Mothers Day with my moms! The weather was to die for and before we left I got a pedicure!

I love coming back to Utah. I have so much fun that going back to Colorado is sometimes really hard for me. If you can imagine a Mother rigorously trying to pull her Child off the play set at a playground while the Child, who desperately doesn't want to leave because he's having WAY too much fun, firmly grasps his hands around the swing set, that's exactly how I feel. Except I am the Pulling-Mother AND the Reluctant-Child in that instance.

This is the closest thing I could find to my scenario I had in my head. Replace the door for a swing set and an outdoor playground and you have what I imagined.

You MUST be joking!

I'm not normally a pessimist but I'm pretty sure life has played a very VERY cruel trick on me. Maybe Colorado just doesn't like me, I don't know, but right now I really DON'T like Colorado... at all.

After an AMAZING weekend of beautiful weddings, great food, family time, and a little bit of R&R, we flew into Denver airport to be met with this:



Yes folks, that IS SNOW and 40 degree weather! It snowed Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Isn't it suppose to be May!?

Hmm....Life is definitely playing tricks on me.

Using Nonstandard Typefaces in Your Blog

Tristin here. I haven't posted anything in a long, long time. Unfortunately for all of you, now that I am posting it is going to be pretty much useless. See, I like to solve problems, and I tend to obsess over them until I have a satisfactory answer. For the last few hours I have been obsessing over a particular problem, and now that I have figured it out I can't help but force it on the intertubes. So here goes:

The Problem

The Internet allows for approximately 10 different typefaces to be used, which is not cool. Not that there is anything wrong with Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana--they are great--but it seems that blogs could be a lot more interesting if they were able to use more variety.

Granted, there are solutions for this. One is to use pre-rendered text (in the form of picture files). This allows for a huge range of stylistic modifications. However, it can get messy when you try to upload the file to your blog. You cannot make quick modifications without having to reopen your original picture file, editing it, re-saving it, and re-uploading it. Blah!

Another option is to use flash. It allows for lots of customization right in the webpage. However, you have to have programming skills, it doesn't work in mobile browsers, and it really doesn't work that well in any browsers. So I'm not a fan.

The Solution

The best solution I have come across is a little javascript code called Cufon. It allows you to use any typeface you like without having to make major changes to the way you already blog. You just assign a tag (such as "< h 10 >") to the font and insert the tag whenever you want to use your custom font. This post, for example, is done in a Didot typeface, which is not available to browsers normally. Here's how to do your own:

The Instructions

1. Go to the Cufon font generator and fill out all the boxes using your font of choice (you do need to have the file on your computer and know where to find it). Pay special attention to the hints by the boxes and don't worry about filling out all the optional things unless you feel comfortable doing so.

2. Click on "Let's do this!" at the bottom of the page and save the generated .js file to your computer.

3. Find a good place to upload the .js file online. I recommend Google Docs, Microsoft SkyDrive, or DropBox. If you don't have any of them I recommend getting at least one of them, as they are invaluable to have.

4. Once you have uploaded your .js file, find its new web address (click on the file, then choose "Share this" or the equivalent). Copy this address.

5. On your blog's website, go to the settings, choose Layout, and then choose Edit HTML (I'm assuming most people use Blogger, but the steps are similar for Wordpress).

6. Insert the following code somewhere after the < "head" > tag and before the < /head > tag:

< src="http://cufon.shoqolate.com/js/cufon-yui.js" type="text/javascript">
< src="'http://your.js.address.here/your.js.file.here.font.js'" type="'text/javascript'/">
< type="'text/javascript'">
Cufon.replace('h10');
< /script>

7. Make sure you have replace the address in the second line with the address of your typeface's .js file. Also get rid of the spaces following each "<". Finally, note that you can change the "h10" in the second-to-last line with any tag name you would like. To avoid problems I recommend leaving it at something similar, such as "h1," "h2," etc.

8. That's it, you should be set now. When you want to use your new font, just add the tag "< h 10 >" (or whichever you chose) to the front of it and remember to close it with "< /h10 >" (or whichever you chose).

The Conclusion

I have only just got this method working for me, so I'm sure there is a lot about it I still don't understand. However, it seems to be working well for me so far. There is one minor problem with it that I have noticed, and that is that the text is not highlightable in the new font, which means you couldn't copy it and search engines may not be able to index it (I'm not at all sure about this last part). Also, the Blogger Preview button may no longer work for text in the new typeface--I'm getting mixed results. This could be somewhat frustrating.

One great advantage is that once you have it set up you really don't have to worry about it ever again, as long as you remember which tag you assigned it to. Plus, you don't have to use the new typeface unless you want to, so you won't get frustrated with irreversible changes. Overall, I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to add some variety to their blog and break out of the frustrating limitations of the Internet.