Christmas time

Man it's been a long time since I posted. We got our Christmas cards out but ran out of color ink at about the 3rd card. So I think maybe two people got nice color ful cards, some got streaky ones, and some even got black and white on regular paper. So for those who have suffered this injustice of black and white cards we're posting it here for your viewing pleasure. For those who did not receive a card from us, consider this an e-card to you.

Also, Sara has wanted me to post this 3d picture from the last ultrasound.

I also recently had a disastrous run in with some delicious taco meat the other day. Sara made some tacos on Wednesday - ish and on Friday I took the leftover meat to work and had tacos for lunch. That was quite delicious but I didn't finish the taco meat so I took it home and put it behind our counter.... and left it there til Monday morning. Monday I found it and it was luke warmish because all the ice in the cooler had melted down which became justification # 1 for me because hey, they were probably coolish (not cold, though) all day on Saturday. That brought me to my next point of reason (#2) that on Sunday of all days the meat wouldn't go bad. So I figured the only time it could be bad was from midnight to 8am monday. My next reason (#3) was that I have eaten dirt covered fruit loops off the floor as a kid which I cleaned with adequate frust (the act of blowing really hard on something to disinfect it - those of you who have seen paul blart mall cop know what I'm talking about - when he eats the sucker off the floor). Either way I am still alive today and don't recall getting sick from the fruit loops. So in the end I decided to just blow really hard on the taco meat before I ate it for lunch.... and dinner. I ate dinner at 4 and then about 10 when we were driving home from kaysville I started to get dizzy and had a hard time staying on the road. We had to pull over and let my mind calm down. Finally made it home and I felt sick like a dog for the rest of the night. In fact I felt like I was gonna die. I learned a valuable lesson - blow harder on old taco meat. I only blew on it once - twice probably would have cleaned it better.

Funny week

We all know that Sara is getting more pregnant every day but last Sunday it reached a peak. Her belly is quite noticeable visibly but moreso with movement. As an example you know how in church you have the other person lean over a bit to give them a backscratchin? I told Sara to lean a bit and I'd give her a scratchin' and so she did.... but I couldn't tell. She probably tilted a half a degree outside of sitting straight up. I told her to lean and she said she was. Oh golly. A good laugh was had when that happened. I guess she really is pregnant! And the size of the belly is a strong confirmation that it is indeed a healthy Lillywhite.

Sara also made some oatmeal cookies this week using a recipe in the Laketown Cookbook. She made it up and the mixture looked closer to soup than dough. So to remedy the situation she added another cup of flour (being as the mix already called for 2, another won't hurt right?). She put the stuff in the oven and it came out as this sugary bready cake!

It's not too bad with some butter but I have yet to dare adding jam. We're wishing we would have added some bananas so it could be banana bread. It was fun anyway. Lesson learned: not all recipes (even in the Laketown cookbook) are trustworthy.

Weirdness

We've had some weird stuff happen lately. First off, my windshield exploded the other day. Okay so it didn't exactly "explode" - but it didn't get hit or anything either. And to my credit, it actually did bubble out. Check it out. At first glance it looks like ice but the sun is shining. If you click on the picture you can see it better. At the same time my car stereo started working because the antenna is in the window like the line heaters. It just happened all in one day when the temperature dropped really fast. It ws in the 50s the day before then it snowed and froze that night. Not sure if that's the root cause or not, but it makes me feel a little better. If you poked it with your finger you could poke all the way through.

Sara signed up for part-time substitute teaching here in Logan. Her first assignment was this week and she subbed for home ec at Logan HS. That was her major when she was in school so its cool that she can try it out. She had quite a day and said it was funny to see how little things get blown up so they are so important. Which when I reflect back on my high school life I can totally relate. My #2 .7mm techniclick pencil (with removeable eraser) was the coolest thing ever. Wait a minute, that might not be in the past. I'm still jealous about (and have) that pencil. It's the bom-diggity.

In other news, we have been playing a lot of street fighter and mario kart. One of my study buddies is becoming an expert at it too so we have lots of fun. Oh and speaking of studying, I am finally reaching the end of my art symposium class. So boring! This week I ( and sara too I couldn't stand to suffer alone) went to an undergraduate art exhibit of pictures. Oh the pictures were so pretty, especially the 5 pictures of corrugated pipe. I don't know if the people taking the pictures were from africa where corrugate pipe is rare or if they really had no imagination. The pictures were even blown up to 24 by 36. What a waste of ink and a waste of my time. Last night we went to a string chamber recital and that was a nice nap except for when the performers kept waking me up. I decided that the only type of classical music I like is oldies.

Girls!

The doctor says we are having a girl! I think everyone probably knows that by now except for the people we just forgot about or the people who secretly stalk our blog. I was really really hoping for a boy so I could have a little golfing and huntin buddy. That still might happen with her anyway. Sara thought it would be a boy for the whole time and then last week she had a dream it was a girl and changed her vote ever since. From talking to other women it sounds like that is a pretty common thing. That's a bit interesting. I wonder if the spirit comes into the body when gender forms. any thoughts? Sara is getting pregnanter every day and she can't hide it anymore. She has become good at acquiring more maternity clothes either by convincing me to let her buy something at the store or getting things at the DI or there is a place in logan that gives away maternity clothes. We also bought the first set of clothes for our girl. We bought them at Macy's from a gift card we got for our wedding (Yes that's right - our wedding - the one back in May 2008). We just got the card, though - things like gift cards have a very short life expectancy around here. We took the clothes to Sara's parents and had them open the bag it was in and that's how we told them it was a girl.

My work has been busy we just got a new batch of speed controllers in and have been working to get them ready to ship out. They look dang good. School is slowly coming to an end. We have 4 weeks left til the semester ends and most of one of those weeks is thanksgiving break.

At home we borrowed street fighter 2 (not the turbo edition, though for you snes buffs) from Sara's brother. We are also borrowing mario kart. Awesome awesome games that provide a needed distraction from homework.

We got our first real snow of the season. It has actually snowed twice but it didn't stick. We have about an inch of standing snow. So sad. We haven't even had time to rake the leaves and our garden is still a mess.

Pumpkin carving

Figured we ought to get a picture of our pumpkins up before halloween passes. We found some cool patterns this year. I think next year I will use a dremel tool or a drill to do this. I carved almost all of spongebob with a 1/8 or 3/16 drill bit I had hanging around. A bit sharp and hard on the fingers but it worked so good.



We also went up to temple flat and had a blast on the four wheeler. Didn't get a deer (how unusual) but had fun anyway.


I went fishing with Sara's brother a few weeks ago. We were hoping to catch a monster tiger muskie but this bass is all I caught.

Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks. Can you believe it? We're going out to Denver and pretty excited about it. Plus that means I'll be 2 weeks away from the end of the semester.

DEER HUNT EVE

Oh its finally here THE DEER HUNT! Right now on the Deer Hunt Eve the house is all a bustle with last minute preparation. Packing the guns and clothes, making sunflower seeds and checking to make sure we dont leave anything. Its almost here and while most people are counting down to Christmas, our Christmas is already upon us for tomorrow is THE DEER HUNT! :)
(This Thought was submitted by Sara Lillywhite)

WarP-Drive

The project we have been working at for my work is a speed controller for an electric motor. I haven't really been able to post many pictures about it because it wasn't released yet, but today I noticed the company we are working with posted a picture on their website. So, if it's on the world wide web then ya'll can see it too! Go to this link www.ngcontrols.com and it is the red thing on the side. I helped design all the red aluminum and the lexan cover. Fun project and its good to see it finally getting somewhere. The controller's name is the WarP-Drive (catchy huh). Our next controller we plan to call the starship enterprise.....

Today when I came home there was a huge bug meditating on our patio so I took a picture of his worship. Enjoy!

By the way, I ate some of those red bell peppers we have growing in our garden and they are HOT HOT HOT! I thought I was eating a jalapeno when I ate it in a fajita! I can handle a jalapeno when I'm expecting it but not when I'm expecting a bell pepper.

We went to Sara's cousin's wedding this week and got pictures of who? Ourselves.

This is a dart that I threw so well that it actually got stuck in another dart. I felt like Robin Hood after doing that although I have not started wearing tights.

September 18, 2009

Now that school is back in session we have missed being able to spend time together at night. During the summer we got to spend at least Saturday and/or Sunday together. Homework has overtaken that time together. I go to school at 8 and then at 10 at night I'm done with work and homework. Usually we spend that time watching a TV show like operation repo. Funny show by the way.

A couple weeks ago Sara went in for the first doctor visit at 12 weeks. They did an ultrasound and the baby is just fine. Can't tell the gender yet but I think it's a boy. Time will tell on that. She's nauseous every morning til around 11. The up-throwing has subsided for now. She's trying out some little breakfast shakes because she gets up and doesn't feel like eating but that's the only thing that takes away the nausea.

On Wednesday Sara accused me of spending more time with my study buddy than I do with her. To that accusation I plead guilty as charged. We spent 12 hours on one homework assignment this week. I invited her to come study with us and then we could spend LOTS of time together but she has politely declined.

Sara has gone through another job in the last week. She quit convergy's because they wouldn't let her reduce her hours then worked at a sushi place for a week and then they decided not to hire her (she wasn't even done with training).

Our garden is quite fruitful. We have tons of tomatoes. So much that we took a basket full of them to our neighbors. Our bell peppers are growing well but they look funky. A normal bell pepper is like 3 inches around and 3 or 4 inches long. These ones are 3 inches around but then an inch or two long. They look like little stubs. Our watermelon is probably 6 inches but we picked it today because it has stopped growing. We're planning to eat all 2 bites of it tonight.

Pregnancy woes

Sara has been feeling the nasty effects of pregnancy over the past few weeks. She has had to come home a couple times from work so she could barf her guts out. She is in the process of leaving convergy's because they just won't work with her wanting to work 20 hours. We waited so long for her to get a good schedule and now that won't work either. She went to see the nurse and they told her the baby is the size of an olive. I never knew an olive could cause so much trouble!

School has started back up again and I'm really diggin my schedule. My classes are Monday Wednesday Friday from 9:30-12:30. I have more credits than that but one is my internship which is a humungo paper due the 8th and then Fart symposium - such a waste of time. I did well with book purchases and selling this semester. I had to buy one book for 145.00 off amazon and that was a good deal. The bookstore is selling it for 188.00. To make up for that I sold a bunch of books and an i-clicker so we came out 20 bucks on top. One book I put on the tsc board last week because the bookstore website said I had the right edition. Then when school started 3 days later they changed the edition. I got 3 calls for my book and had to turn them all down. I was so mad that I came home and put the book on amazon at the cheapest price available. Then an hour later it sold! We got 30 bucks out of it after shipping. Seems like a raw deal except that it is a chemistry book which neither of us can even read. I'd rather take 30 bucks than 0 bucks.

At work my boss has had me help him out with some circuit board design. So far I've only made the board outline and component footprints but I think someday I'll get to actually help design the traces on the board.

Our sunflowers are going crazy! Each sunflower has reached 7 feet but then the flower got humungo so the head tipped way down. Now they are about 5 feet tall and about to break their necks. It looks kind of sad.

Sara "adopted" a stray cat yesterday. It was nice enough and would even let you hold it and pet it. But turns out it was really stray and a hobo at that because it sat outside our window last night meowing and meowing. If I didn't know better I would think he was trying to say some passcode which would magically open the door and let him come in. Anyway, this video is from when he was mister nice cat.

Camping, Garden Update, Tangly limbs, missing sun

This is our pumpkin plant. I suspected it was growing crazily so I measured it and it grew 22 inches in 2 days so 11 inches a day! It loves the hot weather.

Well it looks like all these pictures are in reverse order than what I had hoped. Oh well. There used to be this huge tree by our apartment that had really tangly limbs in the power or telephone lines. I have noticed it getting worse for a couple years and apparently someone else did too because they finally took the tree out. But the limbs were so tangly that they couldn't get them all and there are these logs hanging from the line up in the air. Very strange but funny.

Wow these are really out of order. This is our pumpkin that last post I thought I might have to carve with toothpicks. It's freaking huge now!

Our sunflowers have reached their full height of 8 feet and are just barely starting to tip their heads. It is a little annoying that when we walk onto our patio we pretty much have to shake hands with the entire family of plants which reminds me sara is pregnant due mar 26 because they guard the path.

he other day a bunch of smoke from the tooele wildfires blew into town and blocked out the sun (like I imagine it will be in the 2nd coming). This was taken at 5:30 PM. Sun should be considerably brighter then. It also dropped a bunch of nasty ash on the car.

We went camping last weekend. We had wanted to go for some time with friends but they were too flaky so we just went by ourselves. It was tons of fun. We didn't get the best campsite (yes that is the road 30 yards from our firepit) but we could get the car in and out of that site.

That awesome little cooler was our utility bench. It was our table for putting stuff on hot dogs, our beverage holder, and just about everything else. Very handy.

Mom and dad let us borrow their tent. It set up in like 10 minutes.

Getting a fire going went smooth on Friday night but Saturday morning just barely. We got it started with the last match.

ugly fish, suspicious plants, mini golf

I went to L-town the past two saturdays to go fishing with the nephews (and Brooke). We caught quite a few carp and catfish in Willis's Pond. Ugly, ugly fish but tons of fun to catch. I forgot to take a picture of when we went the first saturday with riley and brooke.

The sunflowers are going crazy. This is right by our patio and I'm not crouched down to that level. They are just really tall.....

Suspiciously tall......


On the other hand our pumpkins are incredibly small. If they don't hurry up and grow we will be carving pumpkins with toothpicks.



One for me and one for Sara.

Something has gone to war on our green beans and eaten all the leaves off a few plants on the north end of the row. The plants on the south end are just fine and have all their leaves. I suspect it is the cat that used to hang around here. He's been looking quite fat lately.

I guess last saturday we actually went to cherry hill and went mini golfing (and swimming). I don't think cherry hill is an all day thing. It's only got 2 slides, a lazy river, and a tube run that just traps you in lame sauce pools. We did that for half a day and it actually wasn't that bad and a good relaxer. The mini golf was pretty cool though. This was one of the cooler holes I've seen.

funny song

I didn't know this was a real song! It's even funnier if you read the lyrics as it goes along



I dont want to work
I want to bang on the drum all day
I dont want to play
I just want to bang on the drum all day

Ever since I was a tiny boy
I dont want no candy
I dont need no toy
I took a stick and an old coffee can
I bang on that thing til I got
Blisters on my hand because

When I get older they think Im a fool
The teacher told me I should stay after school
She caught me pounding on the desk with my hands
But my licks was so hot
I made the teacher wanna dance
And thats why

Listen to this
Every day when I get home from work
I feel so frustrated
The boss is a jerk
And I get my sticks and go out to the shed
And I pound on that drum like it was the bosss head
Because

I can bang that drum
Hey, you wanna take a bang at it?
I can do this all day

peeling skin

Seems like its been a while since I posted anything so let me try to recap without much boredom or ado about what we've been doing. We went to the family reunion over the 4th. I got lots of golf in that week. I went Thursday morning and then went with the fam on Friday. It would appear that was about my last good round of golf too. Since then I haven't done so well. I went with a friend the next couple weeks and couldn't keep it together. I'm going in the morning with the hopes of doing better.

Fishing has still been really hot at 1st dam. I caught a few and gave them to my boss who digs them. He ate them all (6) within a day or two of me giving them to him. The fishing is still good there now but there are a bunch of goons who fish there to the side of me who don't know how to fish. Last time I went I had a mexican guy cast over my line 11 times. And 11 times he reeled it in thinking he had snagged a fish. One time I really did catch a fish and got it close to the bridge I fish off of. When the fish was probably 30 yards away this guy came over right next to me and I said "Hey hang on a minute - let me bring in this fish first before you cast out." I totally wasted a breath of air saying that. I think it would have been more productive for my fishing soul for me to yell "FIRE!" and point far away in hopes of distracting him for a couple seconds. My reason for that is because the guy didn't catch a word. He cast right over me (and 2 other lines) and of course he caught my line. He did a fake-out cast where he looked straight but cast way left. And since I had a fish on when he felt my line with weight on it he got all sorts of excited, starts reeling as fast as he can, then starts yelling to his other friends something in spanish to which all his friends come over to watch him reel in the fish. Really man? really? Needless to say the fish got off and I was so mad I had to leave. I haven't been back since.

So I have started taking up mini golf. I went the other day and was digging it up so much that I am actually going to enter a mini golf tournament here in Logan. Mini golf is a blast but 5 bucks a pop.

Sara's work has just gone downhill. She's been actively searching for a new job for the past couple months but now that search has intensified. It's just a bad time to find a job, especially in Logan.

Oh and I forgot to mention when we went to Bear Lake for the reunioni on the 4th I took great precautions to not get a sunburn. I was lathering up every hour on the hour. I think our sunscreen only lasts 59 minutes so in that minute between the sunscreen fading out and my new application of sunscreen I ended up getting burned on the top of my head and the bottoms of my ankles. Sara on the other hand is refusing to accept her Lillywhiteness and tried to tan a little. She burned her legs above the knees pretty bad. But it actually turned out to be quite entertaining too. We went swimming the other day and when we were going down she started peeling some dead skin off and got this piece (all one piece by the way) that was probably as big as a slice of humungo pizza! I thought she was going to peel off her whole leg! I wish I had a picture because it was amazing. I bet she could get in the guiness book of world records for it. Very exciting.

Sterling!

Hey everybody, We just got the sterling kit car we've been working on in the cache valley cruise in. The work I have done on it is mostly mounting brackets that you don't see. Except for the aluminum dash in this picture. I did that on the mill. My main project is the speed controller so when we can get pictures of that I'll direct you to it. Here's the link to it on ebay. We are going to have to sell it on ebay because the buyer most likely is bailing out. So check it out and if you have 45K floating around place a bid!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Other-Makes-Custom-Battery-Powered-Sterling-Electric-Vehile-FAST_W0QQitemZ140331096566QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=item20ac6299f6&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1171#ebayphotohosting

We are trying real hard to take full advantage of every hour of summer vacation that we have. I've been going fishing almost every night this week. Last night I caught 15 in an hour and a half! Tonight we went and caught 7 and are eating a couple for dinner. (We don't usually keep the fish. Mainly we like to catch them.) We were catching them about every 3rd or 4th cast.

Today we went boating with the Majors at Willard Bay. It was a blast. Fun to just get out and ride a boat and also fun to ride the tube they had. Sara got pretty good at hanging on to it. This is one of the few times she fell off

I also got the news back from my FE test. I passed! Turns out spending 135.00 on that wasn't a waste after all! Sara is searching for a new job. Convergy's was great for a while but in the end it is still a call center and there is no changing that.

I've been getting into golf more than usual lately. In fact I go every week now. The golf course here has a discount for students so I can go for 10.00 if I walk. I usually go with a guy in my ward who also golfs. I'm getting so much into golf that I took to watching it on TV. Never thought I'd get to that point. Hopefully I never feel comfortable watching hours of fishing. Unless you are using a fly as bait fishing is one of the most lazy sports I've participated in. Somehow being too lazy to actually do something lazy (watching fishing on TV) doesn't sound socially appealing.

California

I'm back to the blog with our pictures from our California Adventure (pun intended). First I wanted to share a great bargain we got at DI. We sure love fried potatoes. Or as burger king calls them- french fries. Well anyway, I hate all the work that goes into preparing them. I wish we had something to peel the potatoes too but we have this magical thing to slice them into fries. Cost us a buck fifty and we love it!


We got sweet tickets for disneyland, californa adventure, and even universal studios. A guy sold his to us for way cheap 40 buck for a 1 day park hopper and a free day at universal studios. So total it cost us 80 bucks. We figured if we had paid regular price for all that it would have cost us 250.00. Good deal eh?

Of course not trip to Hollywood would be complete unless you stop on the freeway and take a picture of the sign.


At California adventure waiting in line. A bit nervous I might add because we were worried our tickets weren't 100% legit.

Another classic picture from disneyland.

Sara was all pumped about going on the tea cups. We also learned an important lesson about pictures of ourselves that is that pictures that you take of you and someone else usually include nothing more than your face. We have a bunch of pictures that I took at arms length with our faces all scrunched together. I would include them but they are all the same. You can't see anything but Lillywhite face.

And what a bitter cup of tea it was!

Kade may enjoy this- it's a rapala that is 28" long. we use ones that are 2 inches long. cost: 56.00.

We went to the park with hunter and Mern. Look at all that red hair!

We stayed with Mern and Steven while we were there and got to see their new house as well as help them move some stuff.

Fred's unruly children

Over the last couple months you've heard me gripe about making the plexiglass covers at work. Today I did more of that and wanted to show you my "boneyard" of past failed covers. These are only the most recent (as in the last 3 weeks). I would bet I've gone through upwards of 30-40 covers.

This is what happens when the lexan sticks to the pan it is heated on. There is a point somewhere in between 9 1/2 and 10 minutes of cooking in the oven that it reaches this point. At 9 1/2 the stuff is not quite rubbery enough. At 10 minutes it becomes liquid in places. It's ruined as a liquid but not easily formable at 9 1/2 minutes. This was probably the worst sticking one.

The Lexan bubbles if you don't "predry" it in the oven for 4 hours at 250 F. That adds a lot more time to making these covers-it takes 4 hours to dry them then about 40 minutes to destroy them if you failed.

This is my family of failures. Some of them may look okay but they are bad because the radius isn't close enough to the exact size on thecorners or because one edge bowed up or down too much. It's been the biggest waste of time I've ever experienced. Waste of money too.

Thursday I went golfing and we found this duck walking with a bunch of babies then they hopped in the water. I took this picture planning to count them later. I think this mama was trying to populate the duck colony all by herself. There may have been more ducklings but I just missed them in the picture. I counted 11 in the picture.

We ran into a bunch of groundhogs there too. They were as abundant as chipmunks at yellowstone. And I'm convinced they took one of my golf balls too.

Went fishing with Keith today in honor of free fishing day at first dam. We each caught 2. I caught one pretty good sized one. Keith caught a bunch of weeds with his second fish.

Guess who got a new camera for their birthday!

Yep it was me. I got a new sweet camera for my 23rd birthday today. Its a canon powershot a1000 IS and it is wonderful. It has a feature so that it looks for faces and focuses on them. Plus, we can hook it up directly to my printer that I bought a year ago. It was the cheapest printer I could find so it is a happy coincidence that it works with it. We've been on picture drought for so long I think I may have gone crazy taking pictures and movies. I had Sara be my Vanna (Lilly)white for the day for product demonstrations. She did a swell job at that.




Sara's KitchenAid Mixer that we got from Mom and Dad. This saves so much time (especially making cookies)

Even though this might look like a grapevine, it's actually a tree that is tipping over. I'm hoping that it will someday be as cool as "the bouncy tree" at Temple Flat. I was going to test it today to see if it is ready for bouncing but the ground was muddy.

We went up to Logan Canyon and met mom and dad in the trailer. They are staying the night at Franklin Basin so we met them for dinner and cake.

And what a cake it was courtesy of Sara's cooking skills.

Before going to see Mom and Dad we went mini golfing and I had one bad shot shown here which allowed me to practice my rock climbing skills. This is my actual shot by the way I didn't just act this one out.

This is my whiteboard upstairs with one of my favorite mind boggling "equations". Thank you Vanna.

Sara gave me this nifty watch for our anniversary on Saturday.

Our crops are coming up too. Last year when I planted Sunflowers only a third of them came up so this year I planted them 2 seeds to a hole and 8 inches apart. I'll be danged if every seed came up! They are supposed to get up to 8 feet tall!

The most delicous cake and beautiful cook. That card she gave me was awesome as well.

The camera does really well at close up pictures and our roses are blooming.

This rose is my favorite.

I gave Sara this ipod station for our anniversary. 25 bucks at Wal-Mart.

This is my dart board which if you remember is directly opposite the wall where the whiteboard hangs on. I think I may need to improve my aim. You'll notice there is a rug behind the board to prevent people who have a lack of skill from damaging the wall behind.

When I woke up this morning Sara had already been up for a while decorating the house with signs to help me remember that today is my birthday. By the way our camera does have sound I just didn't say anything when recording. She also made me a delicious traditional Lillywhite breakfast with pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and lots of it. So delicious.