Update

Wow we are really falling behind on this blog thing. I haven't given it up nor do I plan to give it up soon for something like a book of many faces. Since the last post we bought a new (to us) car! We had been watching for a CR-V for a while and almost bought a 2003 model. One day this 2004 showed up on KSL at a chevy dealer in woods cross. We went down there that day right after work. We had a list of things to check and features that were important to us. When we went to test drive it the salesman wanted to ride with us. I told him it would probably be 45 minutes or so because of my checklist. He was somewhat surprised but came along anyway and was a bit thrown around - literally. Here are some of the items on my checklist:

Performance at 75mph - observe rattling or veering
Air conditioning endurance - 10minutes on max through the front vents
Heater
Child safety lock
Radio (bring CDs)
Reverse
Cruise control uphill, downhill, and find minimum cruise control speed
Brake tests - gradual stops (squeaking), slamming(screeching)
Engine fluid colors or oddities
Idle for 5minutes after the drive

So we did all these tests with the dude in there. We got the car ice cold and then cranked up the heater and did some speeding. Then we got down to 25mphto test the cruise control. Went to a parking lot to drive in reverse (quite rapidly I might add). Then the brakes - that was the best. I announced that I would be testing the brakes and to hold on. Apparently the salesman didn't hear and he went flying into my headrest because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt when I slammed on the brakes. Then we did it again - he was slightly more prepared the second time.

Our tests were pretty exhaustive but I felt like we had a good vehicle. They let us take it home that night and had us bring it back in the morning for a checkup (the dealership had only got it that day). For the time they were doing the checkup they gave Sara this gangsta Cadillac to drive around.

The cadillac was cool but we were glad to get back to our new CR-V. It has a lot more room than the accord (which we kept) and is much more off-road worthy. The back seats tumble forward so we can fit long things even with Molly in the car because the back seat is split. It also has a fold out picnic table in the back. The only problem we are having with the car now is coming up with distinguishing names for the two vehicles. My accord has always been known as "the Honda". Now we have 2 hondas. Jury is still out on what to call the CR-V. All we know is that "the Honda" is out.

We have been spending a lot of time on our balcony. It fits 3 camp chairs nicely and is a good place to relax after work.
We spent some time with Becky and her kids catching carp by Willis's Pond and going to the lake. At the pond we hooked 7 nasty carp. Brayden and Ethan both caught 5 pounders (relatively big for the pond). I had forgot to bring my net so we had to use a pitchfork to get the fish out of the water once we brought them in. I think we all increased our spearfishing skills as well as our angling skills. Tons of fun.

fun

On Friday we went out to Center Street Grill for some delicious greasy hamburgers. The place was pretty full and there was no way we were going to get a booth. We ordered our food (very delicious by the way) and went to sit down when we noticed a booth in the back that no one was sitting at. We went and hurriedly snatched it and soon found out the reason it wasn't taken was because it looked like someone had spilled a gallon of a ketchup/mayo/pickle juice mixture on the table, then barfed on it, coughed in its general direction, spat on it, and then spread it all around with a mop you might get from a gas station bathroom closet. Yes it was quite gross. We considered leaving or getting someone to clean it up but they were busy so we figured it would be a while. Then we realized that we were now parents and were prepared to clean up a much nastier mess if we needed to. So out came the wet wipes (it only took 4) and we had a clean table to eat off of. We felt a little like boy scouts whose motto is "be prepared".

We also went fishing at first dam with Molly. She was actually awake for a couple minutes and we caught some fish. It saddens me that it took 27 days before we got to fish together. Oh well there will be many more fishing trips to come.

I did catch a bigger rainbow trout than this minnow sized brown trout but I thought this brown trout was really colorful despite its size. Sara would not let me take him home as a pet or a snack. Very sad.

Oh one more thing I've got to put on here. The easter bunny was very "creative" in his gifts to our home especially this one to Molly....

Yes that's right... the bunny poops as he runs. Who wouldn't want to eat one of those?!

baby lessons

The past 3 weeks we have learned a lot about raising Molly as well as attempting to teach Molly some extremely important lessons. First thing we learned and have been force to relearn time and time again is that babies are supposed to sleep 16-20 hours per day. Somehow we misconstrued this statement to mean "babies sleep all day". That is incorrect as a 1st grade mathematician can verify. What that statement really means is "babies are awake 4-8 hours a day (and they WILL get it). So if you were to come by our house around 3AM you might think we are throwing a party because the lights are on, the TV is on, Molly is awake, and so are Mom and Dad. We've been trying to keep her up more in the day to reduce the duration of these "parties". Those of you on facebook may have noticed that Sara will occasionally post around 3 or 4 am - enough said.

Second lesson learned is that Molly loves sleeping on us. Gotta admit, we kinda like it too as the pictures hint at. And don't be alarmed by the scariness of Fred's face. He is NOT dead!





We have taken Molly for walks to willow park zoo, the park, and on campus. She slept through the whole thing. She may not even know she's ever been outside! Last Saturday Heidi came up with Logan to see us and we went to willow park. That was fun. Molly slept right through it and Logan was awake. However we learned tha willow park is not much to see. The animals there consisted of about a million ducks, peacocks, pheasants, lame eagles, and a coyote or two. Pretty much it was just a bird zoo and a couple other animals that look like they just walked in and were adopted by the zoo. The monkeys were not out yet.



We also took Molly for her first day (of many to come) fishing! We would have taken pictures but we didn't catch any and Molly slept right through it

And now to the good stuff - pictures of Molly!

Ice Fishing, baby update

The last few weeks I've been hitting the ice fishing pretty hard. I went with my brother Ted and his kids and had a blast. We fished like demons, had lots of bites, but never brought a fish out. Boy we drilled a lot of holes though. My ice auger was the new toy of the day. I remember being that way when I first got my auger. I just wanted to drill holes almost more than I wanted to fish. And in true red-head Lillywhite fashion I went home with a cherry red sunburn that felt oh so good the next day. We were out there til 1:00 - that's a long day when you started at 7:30.

Nevertheless, I had to get back out there the next week. I was by myself from 7am til about noon when Keith showed up. I caught 3 decent rainbows and even a dinky bluegill. All the fish seem like they died very horrifically but let me assure you they were not.



There were these guys next to me that had an underwater camera and they would just watch the fish come to their line and when it got close enough they would jerk up and snag it in the face. They caught 10 between the two of them (5 each). I did pretty well catching 3 myself. I don't need no stinking camera! (But if anyone is giving their underwater camera away I would be willing to take the stinking thing.) There were a couple goobers next to me that were there til about noon and they didn't catch a thing! I felt their pain (when I wasn't catching a fish that is). When Keith came we fished much but it had slowed way down. Towards the end of the day though Keith snagged a little trout. And let me empahasize the word SNAG in that sentence. If you look at the picture you can see the fish wasn't hooked in the mouth, belly, or eye. He was snagged in the side of his tail! Many laughs were had over that fish.



Sara is unmistakably pregnant and is very excited?! for Molly to get here (her excitement level depends on the day - it's especially low after our weekly labor class). The baby showers are over and we were richly blessed by everyone's generosity. We have lots and lots of girl clothes. If the baby comes out a boy then that is just too bad because he will have to wear pink, be in a pink bouncer, wear pink diapers, and sleep with a pink sheet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.