I want to get Direct TV...

...just because John Cleese told me to.

And I ♥ him.




Massive fur coat.
Hideous custom tailored blue suit + hat.
Shark tank.
Arm-shaving butler.
Gigantic lobster.
Ping-pong playing eskimo.
Hunting in his drawers.

Awesome commercial.

Yup, more sand

Just thought I’d post a few pictures of my road trip within a road trip the other day.  Even my mother thinks I’m weird.  In the middle of a 1250 mile road trip with Sarah and the kids, I took a day and drove 300 miles to see some sand dunes.  See what I mean about weird?  I think they used to call that a busman’s holiday.  Anyway, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is located about 25 miles north of Alamosa, Colorado, and I had heard of it for some time and have been wanting to see it, so I took the opportunity (and Mommer’s Forester) and made the trip. 

Their dunes are the tallest in North America and cover a much larger area than ours (330 square miles) .  For a size comparison, the specks on the next picture are people who are out walking on the dunes.

They have some streams that run around the perimeter of their dunes, which I thought was kind of neat, since we have no open water at all.  This one is called Castle Creek and was only running about an inch deep.

As a national park, they don’t allow vehicles out on the dunes, so walking is the only way to get out there, and as I’ve done my share of sand hiking for my lifetime, I didn’t go out very far.  But I did find some pretty Sand Verbena flowers and almost all of them had a big green caterpillar busy eating the leaves on them.

Anyway it was a fun trip and another tick off the bucket list.  I didn’t get any sand because we already have them in our collection at the park, but you can see the difference in color between them and us.

They might be bigger, but I think we are prettier.

Capitol Reef

About two weeks ago, I got to go spend a week in Capitol Reef National Park with my landscape photography class.  Bummer...i know.  Kristen, unfortunately, didn't get to go with me.  I had an awesome time hiking and taking hundreds of photos.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

These first few photos cost me $75.  The reason being that a few of us heard about this waterfall but the only one we found had a restricted sign.  But we figured if we came up to to it from a different direction it would be fine.  So we took a bunch of pictures until we were stopped by the always vigilant park rangers who informed us that it didn't matter where we came from, the falls were still off limits.  So we got fined $75.  Totally worth it though in my mind.

I realize that this is somewhat late, but I have heard of problems posting on the blog and wanted to test it. So here are a couple of pictures of the recent eclipse. We probably had about 75 people here watching and photographing the eclipse, and one of the guys I talked to sent me a couple of the pictures he took. So I have to admit that I am not responsible for these pictures, though I wish I were - he did nice work.

The upper picture is a montage of the images he took throughout the eclipse and just into sunset.  Also notice the crescent shaped shadows in the sand formed from tiny beams of light coming through the foliage of the tree.  Pretty cool.
Anyway, don't forget to blog once in a while and let everyone know what's going on with you and your life.  And I'll try and do the same.

Long-Name-No-Can-Say

Do my siblings remember listening to this story on a record when we were little? I was so tickled to find it on youtube! I'm not positive, but I think this is the same recording. When you've got 20 minutes or so, see if it sounds familiar!

Ticklish Rowan

First baby giggles- whether natural or forced- are just the best.  Don'tcha think?

Story of a Poor Boy

So Facebook wouldn't let me post this video there because I used a copyrighted song but I still wanted to show everyone the video I did for one of my finals.  I had a lot of fun making it and hope you enjoy watching it.

New news.

Wow, it really has been a long time! Rachelle and I have been keeping busy with the usual, but are grateful that no major curve balls have been thrown our way. We are trying our hardest to shake off the winter and move into spring. In the meantime, we have a new member of the family.

His name is Mac. My eighth grade class gave him to me as a Christmas present. He should get a lot bigger and should turn a stronger color of yellow as he gets older. So far, he is doing well, even though he tries to bite me when ever I get close. Hopefully we can come to some agreement, since he is supposed to have a life expectancy of 20+ years ... that is twice as long as most dogs... twenty years... the rise and fall of entire civilizations have taken less time. Ugh, a tie would have been a lot less intimidating, but I have to say, I do like the little guy a lot.

Wave Again

Well, Sarah beat me to the punch in chastizing all of us about not doing any blogs lately. I've been meaning to put this one up this week, so here goes.

The weather here has been so nice for winter that I just couldn't resist, and got a permit to hike the Wave again last Tuesday the 31st. I went by myself and took about 250 pictures and had a ball. The weather was great for hiking (high 40's or so) and the only snow I saw was on the north slopes, and there wasn't much of that. I'll just share a few of the pictures with you.






I'd better stop here or I'll go crazy - like I said, I took about 250 pictures that day. Anyway, hope it brings back some memories for those of you who have been there (not too painful, I hope, Aaron) and encourage those who haven't to come make a trip out there if we can manage it.

Post NOW!

Okay, guys. How has it been over 3 months since anything was posted here?!

What's going on with everyone? What's new? What's not new? What's happening? What's going to happen? Anyone?

Well, I'll start.

We've known for some time that Aaron's job here would be over pretty soon, and a couple of weeks ago the announcement was made public that the plant here in Modesto would be closing. Aaron found this out prematurely, so he had this pretty heavy information weighing on him for a while.

Fortunately he won't be out of a job, but unfortunately it does mean that we'll be moving- again. Nothing is finalized yet, but his bosses want to put him in a position at their corporate offices in Jackson, Michigan. He will fly to headquarters later this month for his official interviews, then hopefully we'll have a little more information.

In the meantime we plan on staying here in Modesto until the kids finish school at the end of May, then we'll probably head out there some time in June.

In other news, I'm about a week and a half away from my due date and am getting very anxious for our little guy to make his appearance. It probably won't be too much longer, so hopefully we'll have some more exciting news to share very, very soon!

And now I leave you with a bunch of random photos that Aaron had on his phone. Enjoy!

Pyper's Baptism Video

This is the video Pyper begged me to make to play at her baptism. She'd seen some other kids do this and just had to have one, too.

Of course it brought on many tears while I sifted through 8 years of photos and tried to find just the right music to use. In the end I was glad I took the time to make it, and Pyper loves watching all the images of herself growing up.

Mom wanted you all to be able to see it, so I thought this would be the easiest way to share it.

I dreamed a dream.

I had a dream last night that we went on a huge trip to Holden Beach as a family in a rented suburban, and since we were spending all of our money on gas, the only food we could afford to eat was bread with sriracha chili sauce and seasoned salt on it.

It was mildly unpleasant.

I'm all for the beach part, just please never make me eat a chili sauce sandwich.

Umm...

Why can't I see the photo at the top of the blog? It flashes there for a second when the page loads and then goes black so all that I can see is a big black box with the white words in it. Anyone? Anyone?

Starving college student.

Yes, this is my second year of college. However, this is my first year of having to actually feed myself, since I was in the dorms last year and had a meal plan. I foresee some weight being lost due to good ol' apathy and the unwillingness to dirty dishes just to feed myself.

However, I am now accepting ideas anyone might have for quick/easy/cheap dinners that I can try out. I've been on this cooking/baking kick the past couple of months and I get really excited when I get to try out new recipes, so don't be shy! Help a baby sister out. (:


I can only eat ramen with peanut butter, soy sauce, and sriracha chili sauce so many times before my heart gives out...

Trip to Roanoke

We just got back from our trip to Virginia on Sunday, and I’m just now getting around to posting something about it. We had a great time and really enjoyed our stay with Bryce and Dena in Roanoke. We got there on Friday afternoon after a redeye flight from Vegas to Atlanta to Greensboro Thursday night, so we were pretty beat. But we felt better after a nap, and went out for dinner that evening. On Saturday morning, we went down to the farmer’s market downtown and Mom and Dena did some jewelry shopping.

Jewelry shopping at the market.

Then we went for a short hike to a place called Roaring Run that had an old iron smelter from Civil War days and a small waterfall upstream a bit. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs right through the area, and we drove a little ways on that, as well. Sunday, we relaxed and ended up going to a baseball game in Salem.

Even Zoey was smiling!

Bryce had to work during the week, and rather than hang around and drive Dena crazy all week, Mom and I loaded up Monday morning and drove to Parkersburg, West Virginia to see Uncle Frank and Aunt Jeannine. We spent the night there and had a good visit with them and got to see 4 of their kids (Mom’s cousins): Jane, Judy, Doug and Clark. It was fun to see them and we got to visit a few of the places Mom remembered from visiting there when she was little.


On Tuesday, we went up the river to Tip and Joan’s house above the Ohio River and had a nice visit with them, as well. Cousin David was there with his pet gray wolf, and we got to visit with Cousin Darren and his family as well. After our visit there, we drove up the state and ended up in Washington, Pa for the night, where we found out that hotel rooms are at a premium all through West Virginia and the surrounding areas. It seems there is a huge natural gas drilling boom going on in the state and all the motel rooms are occupied by the drilling crews. So we ended up staying at a place that was - shall we put it kindly? – less than acceptable. We plan to forget that part of the trip, so I’ll move on.

Yes, that's a full grown gray wolf.

Wednesday, we spent basically just exploring the mountains of West Virginia. We found a place called Prickett’s Fort, that is a rebuilt pioneer fort from around the 1770 era. They had living history people dressed in period costume and doing period things. We enjoyed it so much, we ended up spending half the day there. I got to spend about half an hour just talking to the blacksmith. There were ladies weaving woolen blankets on a loom very much like the one my great-grandfather built in Idaho way back when. We made our way down to Elkins, West Virginia and spent that night in a much nicer motel and room, which made us feel better.

We headed back to Roanoke on Thursday, but stopped at a place called Seneca Caverns and toured their cave. They also had a mining sluice setup out back, so we bought a bag of dirt (or mining rough, as they called it – but it looked a lot like dirt to me) and sifted through it for the gems inside. It was really pretty fun.

Mining for gems

Friday was mostly a goof off day (it was a vacation, after all!), but we got to see more of the house that Bryce and Dena are in the process of acquiring. It is an older house in a historic neighborhood of Roanoke and is being remodeled by some contractors to (mostly) their specifications. There has been some miscommunication and misunderstandings with the contractors that have nearly driving Bryce and Dena crazy, but the end may be in sight soon. It’s a beautiful old house with tons of room, a big back yard and a giant garage/shop that Bryce is looking forward to.

Friday night, we went with Bryce and Dena and another couple they are friends with to a little town called Floyd, where every Friday night, people gather on the 3 blocks of the main drag, bring their instruments and just get together in small groups and play music. It’s pretty informal, with the players maybe moving from group to group during the evening, people walking around and listening and just a great time by all. Mostly bluegrass music by some extremely talented musicians. There are also some uncommon instruments to be seen – a washtub bass fiddle, some kind of big box with wooden tabs that works like a bass, and the week before, they saw a weird Swedish instrument called a nyckelharpa (Bryce googled “Swedish stringed instrument” to show us a picture of it). There was also at least one very uncommon person wandering around. But it was really fun and not something we had expected on this trip.

Saturday was the return trip to the airport after lunch in an old fashioned soda fountain with Bryce and Dena and Jason and Katie (the friends from Friday night). With the late arrival in Vegas, we got a motel room there and took the shuttle back to St. George on Sunday when Jennifer picked us up. Like I said, it was a really fun vacation and we appreciate the chance to visit Bryce and Dena (and Zoey!) and see their new place. Roanoke is a great place to visit, and we highly recommend it.

Zoey's goodbye face