Christmas fun

The last couple weeks have been fun and great being out of school. My new job has been busy and I enjoy what I'm doing so far. They have me converting a Mill so it will run by computer (CNC). I got the motors installed on the leadscrews that lift the head that has the drill bit on it but I'm having a hard time figuring out the software to run the motors. I like the people I work with and so far it's been a good venture for me.

At the end of last week I got "called up" to work in Rock Springs for Exterran. Sara had work off so she came too. We lived the high life for a couple days. The weather wasn't too bad getting there but was horrible coming back. Anyway, in rock Springs we were allotted so much money for food and the hotel. Our hotel had a hot tub and swimming pool which we've missed sorely ever since Sara moved out of Oakridge apartments in logan. Then we ate out at Applebees and gorged ourselves. I actually got to do some design work for exterran the next day so it was sad to leave (I won't be going up there next semester). But I definitely won't miss the bad weather. The usual 3 1/2 hour drive took 5 hours because we averaged about 45 mph the whole way. A good trade off for not ending up in the snowbank, though. Finally made it to Kaysville and had the same feeling as getting off the airplane after our cruise -- just good to get on solid ground and not be moving.

When we arrived in Kaysville we endured an hour and a half of intense anticipation for the event of the year -- Neil Diamond in concert! We took the trains to Salt Lake and had to wait in the cold for 30-40 minutes because the train was late. Finally we got the the energy solutions arena and Neil sang his old heart out and we all enjoyed it. I had a pretty bad cold and so the noise was less than desirable for me but Sara thoroughly enjoyed it and she even got a shirt with Neil's 25 year old face on it. I thought there was a snake under her seat one time because she got up and scrame (= screamed) really loud. But it was just Neil's aroura overpowering her with "Forever in Blue Jeans". Good old Neil.

We came back the next day and the next 3 days dragged on until we headed back to Kaysville for Christmas. Christmas was a blast. Sara got a cd, cd holder, ipod, and other music accessories from me and her parents and I got a new backpack. Then today I bought some songs off the internet I've been wanting for a while. Sara played Knights of Catan with Danny and Jenn and myself and she layed a whoopin' on us all!

After a terrible ride home on I-15 we got home to a new 15 inches of snow which we had to shovel off our driveway before we could pull in. I've spent most of today attempting to clear off the rest of the snow and ice from the driveway and sidewalks. It's good to get back home but it also wasn't fun to leave the fam.

Big Changes, Jimmy 5

Winter is upon us. There's no use throwing temper tantrums about it anymore. I've enjoyed having warm weather as long as we have. We had one day of snow but it didn't last long. Today we have probably 6 inches which all came last night. If I had to choose a way for winter to come it would be just like this, though. I hate when it's just bitter cold, icy, and wet. I wish it would just snow instead of that. So I guess I got my wish. We have had pretty nice weather for all of fall semester. Which brings me to another point of great excitement: school is out til January! We made it through finals at last.

This next semester will bring lots of change to our home. Well actually it starts Monday. I applied for a second job here in Logan doing drafting and mechanical/electrical engineering type work. The company is called evsource and they make all the parts you'd need to make your car run on battery power. They're not mass producers though and the cars they've made so far are for small trips ie to and from work if you live in Logan. They run for like half an hour on an 8 hour charge so it's not a replacement for your car more of a commute car that doesn't need gas. Anyway, I emailed the guy Monday and Tuesday, interviewed Wednesday, and on Friday he offered me the job! I'm committed to work 15-20 hours a week and I'm really excited for the job. It will be hard to work both this job and cadanswer in the school year but this job is only a 2 month project. It could be more but it's not a guarantee at this point. I can't believe how everything just fell into place so quickly. It will be really nice to work in Logan and not go to Big Piney or Rock Springs all the time. I already had things in place to not go up to those 2 places next semester because I have to take a class Tuesday and Thursdays so I can't take a day off to go up there. But that means less work for me so this job came at just the right time. My current drafting job (Cadanswer) is really slow right now. I've just been doing sales calls because there is nothing else to do. And there is no drafting work in the future til mid-January. Well that's probably enough about that, let it suffice that I'm really excited and we are really blessed that everything came together like it did.

Also, next semester Sara will be taking off from school to work full time so we can pay off some bills and get more caught up with our finances. She may or may not return to school next fall. We will figure that out when it gets closer to the time. It's a big sacrifice for Sara and I'm glad I have a wife who is willing to do that to put me through school.

In the drafting class I took this semester we had a final project to draft this robot in 3d and make it work in the CAD program SolidEdge. When I got the thing drawn in CAD it looked pretty good but when it actually runs it is pretty skwirly. (However you spell that I'm not even gonna try.)So I'm posting both movies - one made in SolidEdge and the other of the robot in action.

He mostly walks in circles on a level surface. He can run on battery or solar power. I once thought I'd set him free on main street and just let him walk to salt lake or something. He could just walk when it's day and sleep at night wherever he is when the sun goes down. That may not be so bad as long as he doesn't spend the night on a crosswalk. But anyway that plan won't work because he just goes in circles. And plus, he can't take terrain changes very well. He just bellys up when he sees a little rug in our kitchen. But we are taking a liking to him and have decided to name him Jimmy 5 in honor of his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Jonny 5 from the movie Short Circuit. Oh and by the way our camera doesn't record sound so there is nothing wrong with your computer.

Mini honeymoon, weekend adventures

Well finals week is almost over and we are making it through. Last weekend we wanted to do something together that was extremely cheap (free would be nice) and fun. So after much deliberation we went to Willard Bay to see the lights. On the way there we figured we'd need some hot cocoa so we stopped in at the flying J in Brigham city only to be disappointed - no hot cocoa machine in sight. Then we googled 7-11 and finally found it only to discover another disappointment - Hot Cocoa Machine out of order. As a last resort we went to the Chevron and were pleasantly surprised. They had a hot cocoa maker and it was delicious. Maybe even better than 7-11 though not as delicious as QT in Georgia. I learned a very valuable lesson - the saying "Oh thank heaven for Seven Eleven" is no longer true. And I'm going to have to eliminate that phrase from my vocabulary. Eventually we got on the freeway and headed to willard bay and then missed it. Turned around got there and discovered it wasnt' free. They wanted 9 bucks! 9 bucks! and I bet they didn't even have free hot cocoa. We were enraged so we turned around and departed from thence. Then on the way home we thought it would be fun to rent WALL-E from redbox for a buck. But when we got into the canyon we hit a wall of red taillights

from a head on collision that just happened. Bored, we took some pictures. So our adventure was delayed even longer. We finally got home and watched Wall-e. Kind of a hum-ho movie. There's no talking til halfway through the movie and then the plot isn't very enthralling. I'm glad we only spent a buck.

Saturday, however, was a delightful adventure. The manufacturing company in Rock Springs invited us down for free steak and fun with them. The food was delicious and afterwards they gave us a set of heavy duty aluminum LED lights. They are small but really cool. Then the plant manager asked if we had a hotel for the night. We didn't and he offered to pay for a hotel for us. We took advantage of the offer and stayed in the Super 8. So that was our mini honeymoon because we won't be going there for a week like we thought. On the way there we saw the huge windmills.

I was telling Sara how the last time I went up I saw a truck carrying one of the arms for the windmills and just as I said it a truck came by with the huge arm. Total we saw 4 of them. Man they are big.

Christmas 2008

Well it looks like the Christmas season has arrived yet again. We decorated the house yesterday with the few decorations we have. We are very grateful for the decorations Dani gave to us before moving out to Denver. That's pretty much all we had. Over the break Sara's parents let us use their fake tree. I once swore I would never have a fake tree but alas it sits in our living room. It was weird setting it up and not smelling pine (or getting pine sap all over your hands). But the tree worked wonderfully. At first it wasn't very sturdy. I thought about flinging more scrunchies on the ceiling and then tying a rope onto the scrunchies then onto the tree to make it more secure -- but I had doubts about the integrity of the rope. So the we found this 'spare part' that we discovered is not so spare and we put that on the stand and the tree became really sturdy. It's a little short so we put it on this big present to make it taller (and so we could fit more loot under there).

.

We also had some white lights left over so we tacked it to the wall with thumbtacks and it looks pretty shnazzy. I also found a power outlet timer so we hooked both the cords up to that so we don't even have to worry about turning lights on and off. So, around here Christmas starts at 6:45 AM and ends at 11:00 PM. (Anytime between then is St. Patrick's day as far as I'm concerned.)

Sara has an extremely nasty cold. She is down for the count! She tosses and turns all night and coughs and sniffles all day. Our cold medicine drugs are useless against it. Hopefully it will go away before finals. Plus -she is not the only one who ends up losing sleep.

Our dishwasher has been having problems. Namely the dishes are not getting cleaned. It's really old and crappy to begin with so I figured it was about to bite the dust but then I got looking closer at the water-shooter at the bottom and discovered pieces of glass..... glass!, plastic, and candy wrappers in the holes in the shooter. So I got to work and tried to pull them out with pliers, tweezers, fingers but nothing worked so I resorted to breaking the glass into powder and then I would turn it on and blast it out. (The real problem is I couldn't get the shooter to come off the thing it's mounted to.) At the last minute I had my good buddy Jon come over and look at it. He looked at it for 2 seconds, turned this, lifted that, and vuala! the shooter came off and we got the glass out like a dream. And this is what came out.

I pulled the big piece of glass out from underneath the shooter but everything else came out of the actual shooter-arm. It seems to work considerably better now. We had some problems with our glasses breaking in there but had no idea what it was doing to the dishwasher. At least we got it out now.

And it looks like we won't be having a second honeymoon in rock springs. The company I do drafting work for out there hasn't got word on whether they got their bid for the new project. Even if they did get it by say next week they wouldn't have enough time to get the drawings setup so I could draw them before I go back to school. Too bad so sad.

Our pets, interesting details

Ah. Finally I update the blog eh? School is nearing a grueling end. We only have one more week and then finals til the semester's end and the beginning of our 2nd honeymoon in Rock Springs. I have done slightly better on my tests than the last ones. Hopefully enough to keep my GPA up so my scholarship is still in effect. Sara's job is not turning out as amazing as we had hoped. She is always scheduled for 20 hours a week but rarely is able to get more than 8 or 9. She goes to work on time and everything but then a few hours into the shift they send everyone home. So to make up for it, I've been trying to work extra hours whenever I can. We're lucky to be in a position where that is possible. Last weekend Sara saw twilight with some friends and I stayed here to do homework with a short break in between for a ping pong tournament. Sara enjoyed Twilight, homework was awesome as usual for me, but the ping pong was terrible. I got beat so severely by a kid that it looked as though I had never played ping pong in my life. Then on Saturday I went fishing on Bear Lake with my friend Kade. We borrowed Uncle Bob's boat in Fish Haven and had a blast. No fish though. On our trip up to get the boat we saw a huge flock of grouse. I can't hunt them in Idaho but it was enough to inspire me to take time off tomorrow to go hunting at temple flat. Thanksgiving will be a nice break for us and a good time to relax and forget about school before we get worked over by finals week.

And here are some random pictures that I took and/or edited of some of our more mundane experiences. We have discovered that we have a lot of creatures lurking around our house. You may remember the ducks I spotted back in July or something. Now we have 2 pheasants, a cat, and a few squirrels too.




Once upon a time we were chilling in the living room. Sara was immersed in Twilight, I was sitting on the couch when I found a scrunchee. Being fececious I thought I would fling the scrunchee up in the air so it would land on the pillow by Sara's head. Well that didn't work because the scrunchee got so high up in the air that it got scared and hung onto the ceiling instead as shown in this photo. Some may argue that I was in fact aiming to land the scrunchee on Sara's head but as the picture shows if the scrunchee had followed its desired and expected parabolic trajectory then it would land 4 inches away from her head. Sometimes you just can't count on physics. The scrunchees are still hanging there too.

And lastly when it rains here the roof and gutter system isn't so hot so we have setup a system to catch most of the water. We call it "The 3 bucket system" Unique huh? They range in size from an ice cream bucket to a dish detergent bucket to a 5 gallon bucket. I'm still considering using the grill. Enjoy!

down with the sickness

Monday this week I got some sickness that has been working me over all week. Monday afternoon and Tuesday I only went to the classes I absolutely had to and the rest of the week I've been weak or achy. I still have it but it's not half as bad as it was. We also registered for classes for Spring semester. Last semester I worked my schedule to have every thursday off so I could go to Wyoming to do on-site work but I have to take a class before I can continue in my major and it's only offered 10:30 on Tuesday and Thursday. If it was at 7:30 I could do both but not 10:30. And that's the only class I have on Tuesday and Thursday. I may have to retake a couple classes too. We had a test in one of my classes and when I left the test I was feeling pretty good about it but then I got the worst score I ever have in that class. I had the same experience with my last math test too but I think I will probably pass that one. Which brings up another problem. If my grades aren't so good I lose my scholarship and have to fork out an extra $700 a semester. Sweet. Work has been really slow this week for me. The architectural firm didn't call me back on Tuesday as they supposedly "promised". I wil try one more time then give up on them. I finally got some work to do today. The only reason I did okay last week was because I got work from when I went on-site. So I'm not sure what's going to happen next semester when I don't have that work to fall back on. We will get a bonus over Christmas break. If one of the on-site companies I work at gets a bid for a new project they are planning to use us for their drafting work and that will happen over the break. We will pretty much live in Rock Springs for 2 weeks. One week before and one after Christmas. Sara will work 1 or 2 days Monday -Tuesday, then come up with me the rest of the week. But, again, that's all dependent on whether this company gets the contract. I will still try to work full time over the break but there's never a guarantee that 40 hrs will be a possibility.

The Adventures of Fred and Sara

A lot has happened since the last update. Mostly positive. We got the Honda back from the transmission place and to our joy it goes in reverse..... and forward! It wasn't half as expensive as it would've been if the dealer had done it and I think we got a good deal. My work became extremeley busy over the past 2 weeks -- so much that I ened up having enough overtime that my paycheck coming this week will be the equivalent to how much we would get if we were both working. So it's like we're not even missing a beat with our income(s). Definitely a blessing of paying tithing. I also made a sales call this week to an architectural firm based out of Logan and I think we have a really good chance of getting the job. It would be so nice to not have to always go to Wyoming to do drafting work. And, having more customers decreases the likelihood of company "slow time". It will still occur, though. If this firm decides to use us for their drafting work then I will get a lovely commission check which makes it well worth all the time I spend soliciting to companies. Today Sara got an interview with a call center that does surveys out of North Logan and got hired starting Tuesday. I think this job will be a lot better for her personality. Payday loan companies make their employees into a different animal. You either have to be really agressive (or mean) or quit. Whereas asking someone to take a survey is a friendly conversation. She also won't have commission hanging over her head. And from initial appearance it seems as though she sets her own schedule. She has to work 4-10 but she can pick 2 of the 3 or 4 days she works (reason: if you work 3 days a week one of the days has to be Saturday -- not so if you work 4 days). She never has to work Sundays either

Tomorrow we are going to the Augustana concert at Weber as soon as I get out of my test at 3:30. We figured we ought to do something fun together while Sara isn't working. Woo hoo!

pumpkin carving

The deer hunt over the weekend didn't go as planned but it was exciting nonetheless. We didn't see any more bucks but did see quite a few deer. Friday night we hunted up Mill Canyon where we saw the buck on Monday but didn't see any deer there. We did see some grouse and I got one to bring home. I realized that I like to hunt grouse just about as much as I like to hunt deer. I'm still trying to convince Sara to try it whenever I cook it.

Sara went down to Kaysville and chillaxed with her sister and threw a baby shower for one of her friends. Seems like it went well. They were worried that the mom-to-be wouldn't make it to the baby shower but she did although it sounds like she may have had it the next day.

While I was in L-town mom and dad mentioned they had a ton more pumpkins than they needed so they sent me home with a couple which we carved Monday night which brings me to the next item of interest: Sara was at home on Monday night so we go to have FHE for once. She was forced to quit on Thursday from her job so she has every night free. But that means getting back to the grindstone of looking for another job. I got a raise last week but unfortunately it just isn't enough to cover all the bills while I'm not working full-time.

Also, around the same time the reverse went out in my car. I took it to Honda to have them look at it and they glanced at it ( really, that's all they did they didn't touch anything) and said it would cost 720.00 to look at the transmission. And for that useless information they charged us 50 bucks. How nice. So we took it to another placed called one-way transmissions and he glanced at it for free and will take the transmission apart for 600. Much more reasonable. But in the meantime we are down one car. Good timing though because Sara isn't using her car. I got a good vibe from the transmission mechanic (despite the fact that he used the back of a paper towel to write down my information) but I'm concerned with the company name/output. One-Way Transmissions? The car already goes one way! I made sure to specify that I would like the car to go both ways - not just reverse or forward. Hopefully I made that sufficiently clear to him. More news to follow on that possible adventure.

Deer hunt

The deer hunt was a blast this weekend! It was so fun to get up in the mountains and away from school and work for a couple days. I don't think we could've asked for much better weather. The roads weren't slick and it got nice and warm by mid morning. Of course it's always bitter cold at 6 when we got up but that's to be expected on most days in October. Me, Keith, and Steven saw 2 bucks but didn't take any shots. I couldn't tell what they were in my scope and plus if I can't tell they are bucks from that far away I probably would have a hard time hitting one. I saw one deer about 10 minutes after we started brushing that I could've nabbed but it was just a doe. Mom's party was a lot of fun too. We liked seeing everybody just as much as Mom did. The basketball game was extremely intense. I was so beat by night's end. Then we had to head back so I could get up early to do my homework at the house. I was kindof worried that I may fall asleep on the way home but we ended up talking the whole way home. We have been around eachother the whole weekend but haven't had much time together to just talk.

Next morning I did homework til church at 1 then we went to Kaysville after church to see Sara's sister Katie who is in town from Chicago. We haven't seen her since the wedding so it was nice to have a more relaxed atmosphere. We played clue until someone cheated and then it became not so fun. grrr. We came back around 10:30 then it was back to homework til 2:45 when I gave up. I worked on it before, after, and sometimes during classes and finally got it done 4 minutes before it was due. What a pain. I also got the results of my tests back from last week. On the Monday morning class I did the best in the class on the test. I have no clue how - maybe the teacher liked the line made as a result of the test getting pulled out of my hand. I didn't get 100 on it but the teacher is one of those cool ones where he thinks every test will have at least 100%. So, he took my grade and added points to it so that I got the 100 and everyone else got boosted up the same number of points. I don't know what I really got on the test but the 100 sure makes me feel good. The Thursday test, though, was a bear! I have refrained from speaking about it all week to spare others from a possible slough of angry words directed at the professor. Want to know what the class average was? 50.7 %. And the teacher doesn't even care. He thinks that his teaching is flawless and if the class average is really low it's because he just got a stupid batch of kids - so in other words - no curve. I got a 65 on the test and was happy with that. I guessed on 13 of the 20 questions. Total guesses! All I can say is I must be a good guesser. Word is, there are a lot of mechanical engineering students who lose their scholarships each year as a result of this class. I have lost mine before but appealed the loss and got it back. I had a few B's that they didn't like but apparently they don't have forgiveness for D's. Sara also did pretty good on her chemistry test. Probably better than I did when I had to suffer through that class.

Me and Dad also went hunting Monday night up Mill Canyon. We saw lots of deer and at just before dark we saw 3 deer. One of which was a 2x3 buck. I had it in my scope just as it went over the ridge and looked back at me. I fired a shot and the deer jumped about a foot in the air but then I never saw it again. Man I really needed Frank there to help me shoot him. We have mad skills in that area as evident by my first buck up 6 mile. It only took me 17 shots to down that deer and it would've been more if Frank wasn't shooting too. It was so much fun to shoot at one though. It would've been a nice deer too. Dang.

Happy Winter

Yesterday morning when we headed to class at 7:30 we were greeted by the unpleasant sight of snow. It sounds like we didn't get near as much as Mom and Dad did, but there was probably an inch of snow on the ground. Lucky for us, it did melt by noon but it was enough to motivate our landlord to finally turn on the heat and fix one of the holes in the roof of our patio. We were thinking we would need more food storage so we went out and got 5 pounds of cheese, a tub of butter, and 25 pounds of cookie dough. Okay that's not exactly true.... The weather is supposed to be nicer this weekend for the deer hunt though. Oh man, we are so ready for the weekend. We spent the whole last weekend pretty much cooped up in the house doing homework or work. We finished about 1:00 AM Sunday night which made getting up to snow at 7:30 6 hours later even worse. We got out once on Saturday night to go see Eagle Eye and eat at Pier 49 pizza then it was back to homework. By the way, I moderately recommend Eagle Eye (only moderately because I previously highly recommended Batman). But really it's a good one. Pier 49 was a little disappointing. I expected the food to be so delicious that I would be blown away but alas that didn't happen. We ate it all anyway.

Test #1 for me this week was bad news bears. For starters the test was at 7:30 - bad any day. The test had 60 questions to be done in 50 minutes. At 40 minutes the dude said we had 10 minutes left and I was on # 30. Then 5 minutes later no one had handed in their test yet so he said " Okay 5 minutes left - you better start guessing". That would have been a good idea if the test wasn't short answer. To me, a guess is where you take a shot in the dark and have a 50/50 or a 25% chance of getting it right by circling a random T, F, A, B, C, or D. This guy was such a goon too that when the time was up and only 3 people had handed in their test he had his little grunt TA's go and RIP the tests out of people's hands. So, the last problem I was working on has the start of a sentence then half a word then a long squiggly line to the end of the page (created as a direct result of the ripping). How lame. I can't say that I hold a special place in my heart for that teacher or the TA's.

But I can't stop to gripe about that because I have a test tomorrow and then a big kahuna test on Thursday. Then it's the weekend but I can't think about that much because I have a buttload of homework due on Monday. I guess the teachers up here think that a fall break means a vacation for them and slave labor for you. Sara has a big test on Monday.

An interesting Formula

First of all, don't be scared by this picture - there is a reason. My hair is getting pretty long. In class I'm constantly pulling my 'wings' back behind my ears like a girl with long hair. Now that it's fall and the weather changes from hot hot to cold cold my hair is also changing shape. In the morning when I go to class it's cold cold and the hair freezes to my head but then during the day since I am only in one building my hair slowly freaks out like you see here. This isn't that bad actually. So I have been trying to think of how to describe this phenomenon. The only way I can think of to describe it is that it's like super mario where you get a mushroom and get bigger. By days end I feel like someone has mounted a fluffy mushroom on my head as shown. I guess I probably ought to cut my hair eh?

This is also a fairly sad picture as well. I have been using eraser A on the left for 5 years. It started out looking like eraser B on the right. Now A is so small that when I erase I am really using my fingers more than the eraser. I have calluses on my fingertips. So, the time has come to retire eraser A. He has served me well so here is a poem dedicated to eraser A.

Eraser A
What a sad day
We cannot play
Let's go to the bay
Hey
I just may
Eraser A
The end

Dead week

It's been some time since I last posted. We are still alive - just barely. School is working us over. We spend almost all our time between school or work or homework. We live for the weekends. And then they are over too soon. Or we end up just sleeping through them (see Frank & Amy's blog). The big news around here is that Sara went to the instacare the other day. She cut her wrist really deep on a piece of glass and had to get stitches. It is healing really well and she will get them out tomorrow. I wasn't here when it happened so I didn't see it. Sara had also lost her phone so she couldn't call me. She gets them out tomorrow and has a new phone now. My classes are killing me. Aside from the time we got to spend with Frank and Amy for conference, I was trying to figure out a design problem for one of my classes. I never figured it out. I ended up just giving up and turning what I had in hoping to get some partial credit. This class is the advanced version of a class I took last Fall and I did really well in it and I enjoyed the material. Now I am just hoping to get a C out of the class. I can continue on in my degree with a D. I'd lose my scholarship either way. Very stressful.

A month or so ago I had a couple minutes and fixed our dishwasher. The supports for the door are weak or just broken so it hangs down low like this.

So I got some 100 lb test wire and rigged it as shown. I have to admit I'm pretty impressed with my work. The problem now is that when you shut the door the wires stick out. But there are no sharp edges that will cut you, just the coiled wire. We figure it was worth it.

And I realized that we don't have a picture on the blog of one of the selling points of this apartment -- the toilet! Or as I like to call it 'The Throne'. I don't think any explanation outside this picture is necessary.

You feel like a little kid again because you feet dangle when you're on it.

Other than that , I did end up going hunting last weekend with our cousin Andrew but we didn't see anything. I might go this Friday but I'm not sure. It's hard for me to do homework on Fridays (for the full day anyway). I'm just so burnt out by then that all I want to do is sleep or do anything else but homework. This week is 'dead week' in school. Next week I have a test in all my classes and I would bet it's the same for Sara. Then...... Deer Huntin'

Weekend hooplah

Over the weekend we went to Kaysville and met up with Keith and Danielle and Frank and Amy for lunch at Mimi's Cafe. Sadly, though, we did not meet Mimi. We came pretty close but no cigar. I got a burger because I wasn't so sure about their soup and/or sandwich selection. Bad idea. Even though I ate 4 pasta bowls at Olive Garden, I couldn't even down that one measly half pound burger. Not because I was full but because it didn't sit well inside me. I did make it out alive and relatively unscathed. I don't have plans to return in the near future either. Then we went to old navy where we both got new pants. My current trousers have large holes in them (as usual) but the position of the holes at this point are undesirable. And that's about all I'm gonna say about that. I still plan to wear the holy pants just not in public. (church is still debatable). Then Frank went to Golden Corral for his high school reunion. I have to say good job to him for going to that. I don't want to go to any class reunions. So, Frank and Amy dropped off Ava and Koben with the 4 of us and we all watched them for a while until me and Keith figured everything was under control and slipped out to play some tennis. After we finally found the courts, I discovered that I am terribly out of shape and was sweating like a Lillywhite the entire time. Good thing I wore deodorant that day. We are about even at tennis so it was a good match all around. Extremely tiring but fun. Then we came back to Keith's apartment and found everything was on the verge of chaos. Sara had one (only one) painted fingernail, they were all tuned in to Mickey mouse as if a national tragedy had occurred, and Koben was in the corner stacking milk cartons. Later Koben stacked a bunch of spaghetti-o cans and did very well I might add. Then Frank and Amy returned to save the day and return order to the milk cartons and spaghetti-o's. When they left me and Keith played an intense game of Ninja Gaiden on his super nintendo/ nintendo combo. We almost beat the game. Almost! Man we were good. It was just as fun as I remembered it. Maybe even better. Sara and Danielle meanwhile went to Salt Lake and ate something chocolate (I still don't know what) before we went home to Logan. We came back on Sunday to Kaysville to eat dinner with Sara's parents. It was good to see them again. They also have a brand new amazingly awesome garage. Very cool.

This weekend should bring excitement beyond belief to our household. I borrowed Dad's 410 shotgun (which by the way I found out is equivalent to a 67 gauge, cool huh?) and we are going grouse hunting somewhere on Saturday morning and/or evening. I am trying to get one or two friends to go with me but if that doesn't work I am hoping Sara will have pity on me and go. Oh man I can't wait to eat some delicious grouse (or rabbit). joy.

boring

Last week we didn't do a whole lot. I finally got work for my job but not til Friday. Since I had hardly any hours I figured I should spend Saturday working. So, as you may guess, that amounted to very little fun. All our friends were gone for some reason too. Some to home, mom or dad's birthdays, etc. We're still not convinced that we just got ditched. Oh well I guess we couldn't have done much anyway. My test in Solid Mechanics was bad news bears. I got worked by that test. It was a 2 hour test and I took all but 10 minutes because I figured I was wasting my time on it. Guess I should've got my prioritites straight and held off on updating the blog for a bit. But, surprisingly I got a tad higher than the class average which was exceedingly low. Sunday was hum-ho as well. We almost went down to Kaysville but I forgot I had a meeting I needed to go to so we didn't. Got some hometeaching done though. Always a bonus. Wow this post is getting boring to write. I can't imagine what you're thinking if you are still reading this. The end.

Knockin' em dead

Me and my x-roommate Kade went fishing today and we took the fish down to funkytown! I only caught a couple but one that I caught was a whopper! They just restocked first dam so the fishing is really hot. It was fun to get back fishing again. I worried that I wouldn't get to go that much with school and that the fishing seemed to be dying down. But today I had to set my priorities straight - 1. Fishing, 2. 2nd hour of fishing 3. update the blog, and 4. Homework. So last time I posted we were going to a Thai restaurant. The food was delicious but spicy. I got the green curry and by the end my nose was running and I felt like I had a cold because the food was so shocking. Sara got all dressed up for the date (Doesn't she look good?) I felt like a goober because I just went in whatever I happened to be wearing. I think I have gotten a tad lazy now that we're married. Back when we were dating I would wear deodorant....... But aside from my personal unhygiene, this was test week and the our first tests went well but the second ones are looking like bad news bears. Sara had a horrific test in Chemistry today and I have one in Solid mechanics tomorrow that has me scared (but not scared enough to stop typing). On a more boring note, though, I have almost no work to do for my job. I did some training on Tuesday for our new software but that's all I've had for a week. Sara keeps plugging away at her work but customers are being punks this week and not talking to her.

Chef Sara R dee

Sara is taking a cooking class so she has all this chef gear now. Today she made some delicious cupcakes and I had to take a picture. I think it looks pretty cool. I would help her if I had an apron that said Kiss the Cook but I don't. I don't know how to make cupcakes anyway. We've hardly been able to see eachother this week. It was worse than normal. We have a 15 minute time frame from 3:30-3:45 where we can see eachother at other times than after 10:15. A couple times I had to stay after or she went to work early to meet with the insurance guy at her work so that we haven't made that window. So today is our day to be together. My work has been really slow lately. I had to push to get 10 hours this week. I have had plenty of homework to keep me busy though. I went with a friend this week to help dad take down the willow tree too. That was a long day that took a lot of work. But we came home with raspberries, corn, and other good stuff. Well sorry this isn't all I was going to post but we are going to the Thai restaurant now. See ya!

settled

Well the last week has been fairly boring but relaxing nonetheless. We feel like our schedule is set now. We got in an institute class with a teacher we really like at the sacrifice of our billiards class. I was really worried that I would have a hard time with calculus 3 because I took calc 2 in 2004 but last class period something just clicked and I can I remember most of what I used to know. That usually happens with all my classes about the 2nd or 3rd week of Fall Semester so I shouldn't have been so worried. Things are clicking with my other classes and I'm not so swamped because I can actually get my homework done. Our nightly schedule is settled but not the way we would like it to be. Sara gets home at 10:15 so we usually stay up an hour or two each night just talking or playing games or finishing homework, and most recently dinner. We're glad to spend that much time with eachother til we have to get up at 6:45 after going to bed at Midnight. Tuesdays are quite nice though. I have a lab at 7:30 and an optional help session at 10:30. I usually don't go to the help session and lab always gets out early (it's supposed to go til 10:20). Today I got out at 8:30. Sara also has just one class at 9 so when we get done with classes we come home and sleep. Hers goes from 9-11:45. When I got home today she was running a little late so I drove her to class. Sure glad I got home in time to help out. Then I came home and went to bed until Sara woke me up at noon. Then we ate lunch and now she is asleep. It's always a nice chill day til she goes to work and then I have to do work and/or homework. Work is really slowing down for me. We are expecting to get a bunch of drawings from one of our customers but the date keeps getting pushed back so much that as of today I only have 2-3 hours of work to do for the week. When we get the batch of drawings I could probably do 50 hours a week if I wanted. We're expecting 600 drawings. In the meantime, it sure is nice to have a free computer.

No time!

With school in full bore we have no time to spend with eachother. We have classes at 7:30 or 8:30 every day and then I usually get back around 3:30 just in time see Sara off to work at 4:00.

We did get to have some fun this weekend for the holiday. We went down to Layton armed with the last of our target gift cards and went on a shopping spree. I ended up mainly getting things I needed (a flash drive and the weezer cd) while Sara got things she wanted (purse, card game, cd visor, eskimo shoes). Then we went to Kaysville and yakked with Keith and Danielle until it came out that Keith has a copy of Ninja Gaiden for nintendo. Maybe Tom and Frank remember that. It was probably my favorite game back in my glory days. Anyway, that conversation placed us at DI within minutes to see if they had an old school nintendo but no luck. Later we went to Olive Garden, the one me and Sara went to for our first date, and had the endless pasta bowls. Everybody got the pasta bowls but nobody was making use of the endless part so I figured I better loosen up my belt and take in the slack because by golly we are getting our money's worth. I ended up eating 1 huge bowl and 3 medium bowls of delicious pasta. My recommendations on that are: 1. stop at 3 bowls, 2. don't eat the fetuccine alfredo unless there is a lot of sauce or you have lots of water, and 3. the tomato basil garlic alfredo is not as good as it sounds. Even on the 2nd bowl! Then we waddled back to K-town and played another crazy game of jungle speed.

Monday we went fishing with our friends Kade and Amanda and caught lots of creatures (and some catfish) I found a huge frog, a praying mantis, and an ugly grasshopper. I would have to say the grasshopper was the funnest to fish with. But alas, it didn't catch me a fish. Only worms could do that for me. Monday night though it was back to the grindstone of homework. Dang.

muscle building

This morning I rolled the wrong way and got BOOTED out of bed by none other than my lovely wife Sara. It didn't take me long to figure out why I received a booting out of bed and not the usual kick or knee jerk. I had to take a picture - nice calves eh? We have been working out everyday by climbing up the hill to campus. There are 7 sets of 10-18 stairs until you get to the top. We trudge it everyday and so far it seems to be paying off (at least physically). But really classes aren't as awful or excruciating as I anticipated they would be. I have lots and lots of homework but luckily my work is in a slow spot so I don't have tons of work from my job to do also. We were able to swing some sweet deals on textbooks (if you consider saving 30 dollars on a 140 dollar textbook a deal). We both have hard math classes. I am in Calc 3 and Sara is in Math 1050. I'm hoping we will be able to help eachother out. Sara is in chemistry and even though I took the class before I will be of no help to her. That class kicked me so hard in the pants that I still can't sit down when I think about that class. In fact as I'm typed this I had to stand up and walk around for a minute. The one important and smart class we signed up for together was okay there's two - billiards and institute - not necessarily but very likely in that order. I am in a lot of classes that seem like a repeat or are retarded. I have to take a drafting class and they won't let me test out of it. It's on basic 3d modeling which I have taken 4 classes from bridgerland on. I don't anticipate myself attending that class on a regular basis except for to hand in assignments or take tests. I also have two classes that I took in civil engineering but they don't count for mechanical. They even have the same class name and I doubt we'll learn anything different from the civil classes. Silly huh?

jam, injuns, demolition derby

Hey this is Sara updating the blog, mixing things up.
Well this weekend was so much fun for us. We spent yesterday and this morning in Laketown. I really enjoyed spending time with Freds parents, everytime we get a chance to go up I realize what great people Fred has for parents. I am just so proud to be their daughter-in-law and I know that its a rare thing to have such loving in-laws and I am really grateful for that. So here in the breakdown of our trip. We got there saturday morning and I got to witness such a faith strengthing moment as Fred gave his mother a blessing. Then we got to pick raspberries and I learned that bee's do not automatically attack you as soon as your arm is in range. I picked very peacefully and cautiously with about a million bee's hovering around me, what a blast. Then me and Fred got a hands on training session on how to make raspberry jam from Freds mom. That was so fun and I was really amazed at how much patience Kathryn had for us as Fred asks her a ton of questions and then I (totally not paying attention) asked the exact same ones because we both made a batch of jam.
Then me and Fred took a little adventure to see the "Indian" which is a rock formation just outside of town. It was pretty cool looking and the real adventure was climbing up to get a better look. Thats right straight up a rocky mountain. Once we got there we found probably the smallest lizard I have ever seen and it was so cute. Fred tried to pick it up and I am sure he must have crushed some of its vital organs because it didn't move for a long time and when he set it down there was a weird bump on its back like on of its ribs were broken. But luckily it was not dead. Then we had the task of climbing down the mountain, about half way was when I realized that it was kind of stupid to climb up in the first place as I kept seeing visions of me taking one wrong step and falling all the way down.
Next we did some target shooting which was very hot but fun. After that we got to go to the Laketown Demolition Derby with Freds dad. It was so much fun watching the awesome wrecks. They had this weird four wheeler race where the object of the race was to knock the balloon off the other contests while on a four wheeler. Its was so dangerous and to everyones surprise no one got hurt. But the rest of the Derby was awesome and we had a blast hang out with Ken. Then we got home and Fred tried to set up a web cam for his folks while conferencing with Marianne over the phone. Eventually it did work and we got to see Marianne with her baby boy. His is so cute and doesn't wake up for anything, it was so funny to see her move him around and he didn't even open an eye. Today has been pretty chill as we have been trying to soak up whatever laziness is left from the summer and wait for the dreaded first day of school tomorrow. Oh well this summer has been pretty fun and it will be nice to use my brain. again.

Deer!

This weekend we went up to the Major's cabin in Park City with Keith and Danielle. We had a blast getting there as you can see. We stopped to get some supplies at some ghetto grocery store and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a pink pig!

When we got there we played some serious Settlers of Catan and Jungle Speed. Now that (Jungle Speed) is an intense game! It's like war where if you match cards then you grab a totem pole in the middle. But the hard part is that all the cards look the same sometimes it's an octagon, square and octagon on one card which doesn't match your card because it's a circle, square, circle. Very confusing. When we got done my brain was freaking out about to explode.

On the way back we saw a deer cross the road and discovered it was a buck. Not a dinky 2-point though, it was a huge 4 point! Then it went down the hill to another deer which we foolishly assumed would be a doe. But it was another huge 4 point. The pictures are kindof bad and I only got a picture of one but you can get a gander at it's humongosity.

Back at home the crops are doing well. The corn is about ripe and the pumpkin is about to become a pumpkin instead of a flower. The other day though I found a root right in the middle of the garden about 2 inches down. I dug a little further and found it was this huge beast! It took me 3 days, 10 gallons of water, and an 8 foot 2" pipe to pry it out. I am considering mounting it on the wall next to my awesome deer horns. It took about as much effort to get them both. Our sunflower is not doing so well. I transplanted it from the shade to a place that is more sunny and when I did it almost died. It's still alive but it is growing whichever way it wants to.

the last days of summer

It's official summer is just about over for us. I don't know who decided that it officially ends on September 21st because it just as well be the dead of winter when school starts. We're in denial that it's actually going to happen except that we have forked over tons of money for tuition. Even with Pell grants we got worked over pretty bad. We aren't even talking about buying books. That's forbidden around here.

Our friends just gave us their extra copy of Settlers of Catan which if you've ever played that it is extremely addictive. We played that last night til 1:00. One set of friends got us hooked on it then this other couple who are moving to DC gave it to us yesterday. Every time you play you can use a whole new board. It reminds me of risk but not as monotonous or long.

See that? My bossman gave me business cards the other day! I have been meeting with potential customers in Rock Springs in addition to working on site there. I don't go tracting, though. I have been working the members pretty hard.... The company I am contracting for manufactures pressure vessels for the oil and gas industry. So, these other companies come into the office a lot. The office I work in is right by the door so if the manufacturing company employees are busy guess who they talk to while they are waiting- me! So I chat for a while then give them a brochure and my card. Hopefully it will produce more customers for us. But, as fun as it is to give them to people related to the business I find myself using them in other less productive ways. For instance my friend said he got a new phone and needed my number again. I could simply tell him the digits or call him and then he would have it stored in his phone but that is just too easy and not as much fun. So, what do I do? I pull out my business card and give it to him. I think I'm having too much fun with these babies.

Sara got an invitation to a baby shower yesterday so she'll be jamming there next week. It is the first we've got from someone in the ward. Perhaps this means we will have more friends/victims in the ward since our others moved to DC.

Home sweet home

Last night I got back from Rock Springs. It was just going to be the 2 days but ended up being 3 that I was gone. I went to Big Piney on Tuesday then drove 2 more hours to get to Rock Springs to the hotel. (I i figured that would be better than leaving Logan at 4:00 to get to Rock Springs by 8:00.) Rock Springs was for the most part easier than I thought but I'm glad I spent a lot of time at home practicing with an evaluation copy of the software. Then when I was there I was supposedly going to be using their software but their software lock wasn't working. So guess what system I used? My own evaluation copy. They were fairly impressed that I came that prepared and liked that I knew the software as good as I did. I still have a long ways to go but it would've been bad news if I hadn't practiced. They gave me 20 drawings to revise which they figured would take me around 4 days to complete (2 days this week and 2 days next week). Well I got those done in a day and a half and ended up having to go to the shop with a pipefitter and sketch my own drawings. Word from my boss is that they really liked having a real drafter on-site who knows what they are doing. The plant manager in Rock Springs basically asked my boss to give me a raise too! We are excited about that.

It sure wasn't fun to be away from Sara though. I ate at IHOP one night and had a lonely lonely big bacon omelette. Delicious but lonely. What made it worse is that I had a huge hotel room. Since we booked so late we took the last non-smoking room available. It had 2 queen sized beds, a 27" TV and a fridge and microwave. All that just for me. They had a pool and hot tub available which I almost went to but when I got close I saw a bunch of creepy old men in there and got so scared I decided to retreat to my room.

Back at home Sara is doing awesome in her job. She sets goals every night for how much she will collect from the customers and she has been setting them high and reaching or nearly getting them every night. She really likes not having to run around and be a grumpy manager's gopher girl too.

Last weekend we also went to Bear Lake. We learned that coming at 3:00 is never a good idea because it gets really windy and gives you sand burns in uncomfortable places. We tried to have fun nonetheless. At night we went fishing and caught 15 catfish with Dad. Then we went to Laketown, ate some greasy burgers and oh-so-delicious ice cream and raspberries while jamming with Frank and Amy who were there to pick up Ava and Koben. Sweet sweet goodness. Oh and when we were there we got a wedding gift- $19.38. That's right nineteen dollars and thirty-eight cents. Weird huh? Not really it was from a friend. That's just the kind of guy he is. Now if only we can firure out what item to purchase that costs exactly $19.38.

Rock Springs

I just got off the phone with the plant manager in Rock Springs and it looks like I will be going after all. I have to be there 8 AM Wednesday and will be there til Thursday night. I wish I could take some time off for fun (sneaking to Denver or meeting between) but I will be training a new on site employee in Rock Springs during the time I am off. Initially I was going to be there for 3 and up to 5 days but now it's just 2. I hope that is enough time for me to be trained on the software. The really good thing about this adventure is that I will be making extra pay and overtime which we need for school and books this fall.

School re-ranging

Okay okay first I better apologize for not updating my stinkin' blog! for 9 days 1 hour and 16 minutes. All I can ask for is mercy. We have finally got our school schedule figured out for the Fall. Sara had problems getting into Math 1050 and I need to have one day off a week so I can do this Rock Springs job. Before the madness of rearranging our schedules began our schedule looked like a lot of sleeping in. I think there was only one day that we had to get up before 9:30. We also had a beginner's swing dance class together which we wanted to do last year but you know how things go when you're dating- you just wanna be sure to avoid potential awkwardness. Well anyway now that we are married figured we could take the class risk-free. Then we reranged our schedules. Now we have a class at 7:30 (AM) 2 days a week and the other days we have to be at class at 8:30. The swing dance class got thrown out the window but we sneaked ourselves into a billiards class which should be good because we are both horrible at that. The important classes have worked out though. Sara has her 1050 class and I have Thursdays off.

As for work, Sara really likes her new job so far. She graduated from training yesterday and officially starts today. She has had to take a pay cut but it is so worth it when she comes home in a good mood because she hasn't been treated like trash all day. I still haven't taken my business trip to Rock Springs yet. I need to leave next week or the week after or it isn't going to happen. I have been talking to their head drafter in Broussard, Louisiana and he was telling me that there really isn't anyone to train me on their software in Rock Springs so he wants me to fly out to Louisiana so I can be trained by him. My boss is fine with that but it all depends on the Plant Manager's decision in Broussard. I probably won't end up going in the next couple weeks but if we are still working with this company next year there's a good possibility I will be going out there. Exciting huh?

The fishing has slowed down quite a bit. We went last week and caught 3 fish, then 2, then 1 then last night we got skunked (0). We're considering taking a fishing-camping trip soon up to Franklin Basin. I'll let you know if/when that happens.

Sorry no pictures.

update

The transitions happnin around here are going pretty good. Sara is officially done with Kohl's and has started her new job at Direct Financial Solutions. She is in training for the next two weeks but her hours are great: 9:30-3. After training she has to work 4-10 and we're not real excited about that but at this point we have to think about how her schedule will work with school. In the meantime, we have lots of time at night to go fishing, swimming, movies, or just chillax. We've also had to make some decisions about my job. It's becoming apparent that the days of staying home all week long and getting work are gone. In order for me to get 40 hrs a week I need to go on-site to the oilfield or to a fabrication shop at least once a week to get drawings to work the rest of the week. I even spend a few hours a week doing sales calls. One of my sales calls landed us a customer in Rock Springs who wants a drafter 3 times a month at his site. I'm pretty sure I can make that happen just fine. Problem is, before I'm ready to go 3 times a month I need some heavy training with their software and how their company works. What that equates to is that in the next few weeks I'm taking a business trip to Rock Springs, staying there 3 days a week for 2 weeks. The company will pay for hotel, food, gas, provide a car, and pay extra for the time I work there. They would even let Sara come up with me. It's almost too bad she got a job so quick. I'm not sure exactly when I'll go up there or what I'll do with my evenings in Rock Springs - I'm thinking fishing and golf. All this is going to happen just as we're trying to get school figured out. First day is August 25.

Ducks!

Well I just got home from working in Rock Springs today and found these creatures walking on my driveway. A momma duck and 6 babies! Pretty cool huh?




Our life is in transition right now. Sara is quitting Kohl's. Her last day is this Friday. My job is supporting good enough for now. I'm just glad that she won't be working there anymore and have to be treated the way she is now. We also got a new entertainment center and TV free from Sara's cousin. So it's really cool to have another TV. But, we don't have 2 DVD players so we have converted the mini TV we used to have in the bedroom into a DVD player. It's a little distracting to have to have 2 TV screens going but it saves us 20 bucks. 2 days a week I have been going on site to oil fields for work. Today I went to Rock Springs, usually I go to Big Piney. The company doesn't have enough work to just email us drawings anymore so someone has to go get small sets of drawings that last us a few days. Guess who that someone is..... But it is better to do that than to not have work for those 2 days a week. It gives me some extra hours at least.

pictures

Today I discovered that the memory card shaped hole in the side of my computer actually takes memory cards. (I have been stuffing paper in it for weeks in hopes it was a shredder.) So now I can transfer picture straight from the camera to the computer instead of printing and then scanning the pictures to the computer. So here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

the curse is over!

It's official- my fishing famine or curse is over! In the past 3 days I've caught 21 fish! 4 on Wednesday, 11 on Thursday, and 6 today (Friday). This picture is from the day we caught 4. Sara caught 1 1/2. I caught 2 1/2. We don't keep little rascals like these anymore. I was just so excited to catch a fish that I kept these guys. One of the fish is actually albino. It's weird to catch an albino rainbow trout. While the regular rainbow has a variety of beautiful colors, the albino has a variety of white and yellow scales with 2 creepy red eyes. Sometimes we refer to them as alblindos because they always get snagged in the eyeball. We helped tom and dani move some stuff from their house and now we have a table and chairs. wahoo! I came home and parked tom's truck just outside our driveway and our neighbors put a note on it saying we couldn't park there because it's a private roadway. What? Oh well. I don't know what we'll do with the truck to avoid getting a ticket. I just mowed the lawn today and I'm thinking of camoflauging it in grass so people will think it's a huge truck shaped pile of grass. But really it will be a truck covered in grass. Now that I think about it I can't believe how ingenious it is. Perhaps I'll post that picture later on.

July 27, 2009

Well after we visited Tom and Dani and the kids for Elle's birthday party I have decided that we need to enjoy the sweet life we have now with no kids, working from home or starting around noon. So everyday we can we sleep in til the last minute possible and go to bed as late as 10:00 some nights. Yes it's true we are a little lacking in the staying up late area. Trying to catch up for the last 10 months.... Over the weekend we went hiking up to the wind caves in Logan canyon. We started late and so we got to the caves 2 miles away just in time to see the sun (after it had set). Then we had a scary hike back but decided it was a fun adventure. Next time we go hiking we will start before 8:30. A few days later we went fishing at 3rd dam. In th past fishing there has been quite exhilirating. Lots of fish bite and get caught there. but none by us. I go fishing with my friend Kade usually and he will catch 3 plus fish while I catch lots of snags. I'm on a fish-catching famine right now. The last time I caught a fish was our first date July 27, 2007. So I decided that if I don't catch a fish by July 27, 2009 I'm done fishing for the rest of my life. I would've set that deadline as July 27, 2008 but I just bought a new pole and reel and line and rapala. But Sara had lots of fun and got pretty good at casting. Perhaps I can learn a thing or two from her. My work is going pretty good I drive 80 miles to woodruff on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get better training. That's what we call it but it's just nice to work close to the boss where he can answer my questions right then and there instead of having to call and have him explain things to me. Kohl's could treat Sara a lot better but they have given her better hours 12-6 pm. With this schedule we are able to see eachother more often. Even though I work from home I've found that I get work faster and get more done if I work when everyone else does from 8-4 or 5. So when Sara had to work at 6 (like tonight) it feels a little like being boring and single again. But no real serious complaints as of yet.

Honeymoon adventures part 2

So, the honeymooon was great and everything until the time came to come home. Florida seemed to be doing everything it could to keep us there. Well back up a step...... we wanted to go the the florida aquarium on the last day (Monday). We acquired a map and then made a mad attempt to find the place. We got lost on some memorial highway (although the memories we have of that road are not too fond) then we figured we were going the wrong way and took the first exit we could only to find a happy toll booth that ate 50 cents. Well that wasn't the thing to do so we headed back and met another hungry toll booth on our way out. Somehow we got really close to the aquarium but ended up taking a wrong turn. I mean really wrong. The signs change from exciting messages like "St. Petersburg 20 miles, Clearwater 35 miles" to "Warning: Long bridge ahead- check fuel level". But it was too late for us. We ended up going on that 20 mile bridge to St. Petersburg. Luckily we did have enough petroleum to make it over and back but there was no turning around. It's just a long long one way road over the bay. So we made it over and back all the while eating up lots of fuel which we were blessed to get to pay back. We made it to the aquarium and petted an alligator and some stingrays and saw a fish that is supposed to weigh 1500 pounds. Pretty cool. When the time came we headed back to the airport and spent the next hour getting severely lost. Not that we didn't know where the airport was... we could see it the whole time but the roads we were on took us away from it. One road we went on was a back way to the airport and I'm pretty sure if we hadn't turned around we would've been racing 747's on the runway. Anyway, we got to the airport, dropped off the car, and got our boarding passes and luggage taken care of. Our flight was supposed to go from tampa to Dallas to Salt Lake leaving Tampa at 7:15. At 7:00 our flight was cancelled. Thanks Florida. So we went back to luggage, got a new flight that left at 8:45 heading to Las Vegas and getting us to SLC at 2:20 AM. In the meantime we had to go and recheck our luggage and since our flight was cancelled we were both "randomly selected by our airline" to have our luggage searched and us checked for chemicals. We barely made our flight to Vegas. Got to Vegas at 3:00 AM Florida time and guess what... our flight to Salt Lake was cancelled. Thanks Nevada. So we stood in line for another 2 hours and the lady said "Well I can get you to Phoenix tomorrow night then on a plane from Phoenix to Salt Lake Wednesday morning. How does that sound?" The worst part is I think she was serious. We were about to tear her head off at that point and told her to get us on the next flight to Salt Lake from Vegas. And I don't know why she didn't think of this first but she got us on a flight to Salt Lake the next morning at 6:20. They gave us a hotel voucher and sent us on our way. Well there were lots of people in our predicament so we got on the shuttle and had to make a million stops so everyone could go to a fancy hotel like the excalibur or the monte carlo. Finally got everyone off but us and another couple who were headed to the mariott in Henderson. Henderson! That's like an hour away! So at 2:00 Vegas time we headed over to Henderson only to find a traffic jam that stopped the freeway. At this point we gave up and told the bus driver to just take us back to the airport. We spent a luxurious night in the airport seats and/or the floor, got up stood in line for 2 hours to get our boarding passes only to discover that they had me scheduled on another flight than Sara. They fixed that and put us on the same flight in seats far away from eachother. Again when we went through security and were "randomly selected by our airline" to receive a pat-down search and our luggage rummaged through by greasy security officers. I can only imagine what search we would've got if we had been sent to Phoenix... Finally we got on the plane, bribed the flight attendant so we could sit by eachother and eventually got to Salt Lake at 8:50 AM. Crazy huh? I don't recommend it to anyone. We are done flying for a few years.

Honeymoon Pics

Honeymoon

We just printed off the Honeymoon pictures. We used a disposable waterproof camera so the resolution isn't terribly good. That whole week was a blast! We went on a cruise out of Tampa that went to the Cayman Islands then to Cozumel, Mexico. We went on a sightseeing tour in the Cayman islands in a thin bus and a crazy driver. The tour was called Seven Mile Beach tour so we figured it would include a stop at..... the beach. Well we only made 2 stops: one at a place called Hell and at a Rum/Rum cake factory. Hell was exciting but we got rained out. The Rum factory could have been more exciting if we were raging alcholics but alas we settled for a delicious virgin pina colada. We've been having withdrawls over that beverage ever since. The next day we were at Cozumel where we went on a tour of the Mayan ruins across the bay. That was pretty cool. Those nephites sure were smart! and they liked iguanas too. One of the pictures has an arrow pointing to a crooked building. I thought it just looked stupid til our tour guide explained that it is crooked at 23 1/2 degrees- the exact tilt of the earth. Every morning at 5AM a light comes through a little window in the back and makes an amazing star if you look from another building at it. (No, we weren't there to see it at 5 AM.) Our tour guide kept saying how there was a huge war between 300 and 500 AD and massive amounts of people died. He said they don't know what caused the war and why they kept fighting so long... Wow he needs to read Moroni. We got to see the beach from there but it was down a steep cliff that looked like something evil kenievel would back away from. The last few days of the moon we went to Clearwater, got lost forever, found the beach and got sunburns on our shoulders, and just chillaxed. On Sunday we went to the Clearwater ward where everyone asked if I was related to the Keith. They really liked him there. Okay well I'm going to do some work. I'll clue you in on our adventurous flight home later.

May 30 Madness!

Here are some pictures from the wedding in case you couldn't come or didn't feel like snapping photos. Thanks to everybody who came to all the events... especially those who chanted "smear it!" during the cake cutting. Hopefully some of these shots are ones you haven't seen such as Sara's first golf lesson. Have a look at Elle in the family picture.... what is she doing? Also, we bought all the rights to the pictures so if there are pictures our photographer took that you want let us know and we can send them to you.