BOAM

I just overheard a new co-op say “I just feel so insecure.” It made me giggle. Moving on to the real reason for this post – vacation!

A few months ago Jen and I were talking to our friend and coworker about his sail boat he keeps in L.A. We somehow convinced him he should take us on a boat trip. We picked a date in May and started planning for our ideal adventure. As May came closer and closer, Jared, our friend started warning us the trip might not happen, the boat was in need of some repairs before we could go on a trip. We told him to get to work and get that ship in shape in time for our trip – he promised! Meanwhile Jen and I worked on a backup plan. Neither one of us had been to Great Basin and Jen wants to visit all the national parks out here before she moves back home. We began planning.

Jen called the ranger to be sure things would be open for us when we were there. We were planning a long weekend so we needed enough stuff to do for 3 days. When Jen outright asked the ranger if we would have enough stuff to do in the park for 3 days the ranger didn’t even hesitate in saying no. Crap. Time for a backup plan for the backup plan.

We finally settled on Moab for a few reasons, it is warm there and we could go to two national parks. Excellent. Jen, Jared, Shad and I left for Moab last Thursday night. After dropping Dublin off at my parents we were on our way. After only a few hours into the trip we started our adventure. While driving on I-6, a deer ran out onto the road and hit our car. I say hit our car because it literally ran into the side of the car, I didn’t hit it. After walking to the nearest mile marker and calling highway patrol, we were on our way. Poor Rex has some dents that will get fixed this week but everyone was fine (minus the dead deer) and we had a good laugh.
The next morning we headed into Arches National park. We started off with the Delicate Arch hike since I had never done it. Here are a few pictures.

During lunch at Delicate Arch, someone (not someone in our group) lost a water bottle over the edge of the cliff. Jared being very concerned about the environment went to the edge of the cliff to see where it was. The next thing we knew, Jared was over the edge after said bottle. Meanwhile an older couple next to us got really concerned. We reassured them he had his ID in his pocket so they could ID him when they found his body(I’m not kidding – those were our exact words). A few minutes later, Jared returned to our ledge triumphant with the bottle. Then the real fun began. The man from the elderly couple insisted the group give him a round of applause then asked Jared what he did for a living. When Jared responded he was an engineer, the old man was so disappointed and said “that’s too bad; I could use a nimble man like you to work at my steel mill. Mmm.” That’s right. An old man hit on Jared by calling him nimble and offering him a job in his steel mill in front of his wife. He also called him Jerry instead of Jared. If you’re a nimble good looking young man, I have some job hook ups in the steel industry apparently. We went on a few more hikes then came back to camp and made bacon wrapped cheese stuffed hot dogs. So delicious.



The next day was mystery day. We put the boys in charge of this day. They gave us the option of doing the Firey Furnace in Arches (this requires a special pass you have to get the day before) or going Jeeping. I wasn’t sure why Jeeping was even an option – Shad has told me on several occasions off roading makes him sick. I voted for the hike so off we went. The hike started off fine, there aren’t any trails in that area of the park, so you’re kind of on your own. We wandered for a bit then the boys climbed up some rocks leaving us in a hole, with no way to climb out. Stupid boys taking for granted their upper arm strength. Here’s a picture of us in the hole. We were actually really mad though none of the pictures showed it.

After that, we reminded them that they had girls with them and they could scale rock walls to their hearts content, they just couldn’t expect us to follow. We enjoyed lunch in a cave we found the headed back to Moab.

It was a pretty toasty weekend in Moab so we headed to the public swimming pool for an afternoon of cool water. It felt really good. After that we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.
Sunday we spent the day in Canyonlands hiking. The ranger there suggested we do a bunch of little hikes to see the diversity of the park. That is exactly what we did. It was another good day of hiking though I was a little sore from scaling rock walls with the boys the day before.

We went back to camp and made some tin foil dinners then went back to Arches to enjoy the sunset and get ice cream after. It was a great night to end our trip with.

Mother's Day!

Since I am the Mommy to an adorable puppy now, this was my first Mother's Day. Too bad I spent it sleeping after a night of backshift. Tonight is my last night for at least a few weeks and I'm very excited for that. Maybe I'll even get to go home early.

When I work up this afternoon (I slept until 4:30 - new backshift record!), my sweet puppy gave me my present. I made it to the top of the stairs before he ran over with a very nice wildflower in his mouth and a card tucked in his collar. Shad told me he picked the flower for me on their walk that day and the card included a paint puppy print as the signature. Well, I was told it was a puppy paw print, I couldn't really tell. Apparently the practice went much better. I'm a bit skeptical about him personally picking the flower for me. He did bring me home a pinecone last week from a walk - I had asked him to bring me one a while ago. I was expecting one of those. Much more his style than a flower. He didn't really want to give me the flower - he was intent on eating it but it was the thought that counts.

Shad and I have decided he was a goat in his former life. We've been debating between goat and cow for awhile now due to the amount of grass he chooses to eat when he's in the back yard. We finally decided on goat for two reasons. 1) He stares very intently at the goats when we walk past them on our walks. I used to think it was because of the square pupils - I guess I was wrong about that. 2) He eats other "non-food" items (paper, drip system tubing, monkey tails, random plastic - you get the point) other than grass which I think rules cow out as his past identity.

Shad also made me a delicious breakfast of waffles this morning. He had wanted to serve me breakfast in bed, but he didn't want to wake me up so he waited until I was up. Sadly after that, it was off to work again. At least this week will be a short week thanks to our boating trip turned great basin trip turned Moab trip. I'm sure I will have lots of pictures to share when we get back. I wish Dublin could come with us, he would love it. Instead, he gets to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's which I'm sure he'll love almost as much. It's funny he's still so little but he gets excited when he realizes where we're going when we go visit them. I thought it would take him awhile for him to realize Grandma and Grandpa's house means spoiling. I understimated him.

Familes are forever

Well my lack of patience has finally paid off...I got to pick up our family pictures today. I'm pretty sure I love them all, too many to post. Here are a bunch of my favorites though.

In other non-picture related news – if you haven’t guessed by the fact this blog was posted at 2 AM, I’m on coverage again. I had really high hopes that I would sleep in really late this morning since I’ve had a few days off to get into the habit, no such luck for me. This morning instead of rolling over and falling blissfully back to sleep after Shad got up for work, I laid there and tried to wish myself back to sleep. I even took drugs last night to help me sleep. Not fair. I’m not feeling as bad as my last set of back shifts, we’ll see how I’m doing in a few hours.

Because I had Tuesday through Thursday off this week, I had a very productive week at the house. Tuesday I slept in (superb!) and took Dublin for a long walk. We got back just in time for me to finish the laundry and go grocery shopping. After that was finished, I had the chance to go down to Layton to visit my friend Kay. I absolutely adore Kay and I don’t get to see her often enough. We spent a few hours talking at her parents’ house catching up on life. After visiting Kay, I headed down to Salt Lake. The Sweater Friends had a show that night and I didn’t see the point in driving back to Ogden just to drive down to SLC again. Luckily my parents don’t care if I use their couch for a few hours. After chatting with my mom for a bit, I left to go play at Sugarhouse Coffee. We had a really good show, Jake’s family came which was fun since I haven’t seen his sisters since they came home from Mexico. I love those girls. If you go to our blog, you can see a video of us singing a new song we have. Good times.

In other Sweater Friends news – Go pick up this month’s City Weekly and turn to page 60. That’s right a little sweater review for you all! Since we played until 9:30 at the coffee shop, I didn’t get home until late. Shad sounds like he’s drunk when you wake him up. It’s good times.

Wednesday I finally finished painting the trim in the rooms I painted while Shad was out of town. Yes that was a month ago – it’s done now, that’s all that matters. Dublin and I went for a nice long walk and I made some delicious citrus chicken for dinner. After dinner we headed down to the Bountiful rec center to see Shad’s brother play water polo in a tournament. I don’t even get how water polo works and I can tell you that their team is sad. Luke is still young though so maybe with some time, they’ll get better.

Thursday I registered Dublin (he’s finally legal) and made a trip to the DMV. Apparently they entered our address in wrong when we registered the Forester so we never received the title. I was a little annoyed I was going to have to go again but luckily the DMV in Ogden is a ghost town at 11:00 AM on a Thursday. I walked right in and my number was called. 5 minutes later the problem was solved. I spent the rest of the day shopping for my dad’s birthday, Mother’s Day and my brother’s graduation present. After that was finished, it was off to tutoring. After tutoring Shad and I had a delightful dinner with our friends Jen and Jared and then went to a late movie. We originally decided on Monsters vs. Aliens but when we got to the theatre, we were informed Star Trek was playing now instead. That left us with Wolverine or Star Trek. We picked Wolverine – I wasn’t a fan but what can you do?

Today, Dublin and I drove down to Salt Lake to pick up our family pictures. Before heading home, we stopped for a walk around Liberty Park. It was a perfect afternoon for the park. When we got home, I started cleaning out the junk room in the basement and Dublin took a nap. When Shad got home, we headed down to attend my brother’s graduation. He finished up his MBA at the U this year. The highlight of the ceremony was the cheer from the crowd when the dean (? – I wasn’t paying attention to who the guy was that was talking, my bad) announced there was no speaker. Good times. In true Lundberg fashion, after receiving his diploma and posing for pictures, Scott kept on walking so we could go to dinner. The usher even tried to tell him they like them to stay, he told her he had other things to do. We had a delightful dinner at the Wild Grape. We had to leave right after dessert though since I had gotten permission to come in late to work, 11:00 was all I could barter for. I’m so proud of him and grateful to have Scott as my brother! Way to go!

Patient?

I used to think I had grown up because I don’t get so impatient about things anymore. Now I’ve realized, I haven’t gotten more patient, things have just gotten faster. Little things you used to have to wait for can happen in the blink of an eye now. Waiting for an email response from someone? I’ll have to wait until I get home – nope, I have to wait until my phone can download my inbox. The 2-3 hour wait has turned into about 5 seconds. Waiting to get a chance to go to the cd store to buy a cd I’m dying for? I’m no longer waiting weeks – I once again log onto my phone and in the length of about a song – I’m listening to new tunes. Why am I talking about this you may ask? We got our family pictures taken approximately a week and a half ago. Our photographer told us they will be done in about 2 weeks or so. Every time I think about them I get excited, then I get super impatient because I have to wait – GASP! – 4 or 5 more days. I’m lame. End of story.

Other than being impatient this week, I got a lot of stuff done. I successfully completed 3 trials at work despite every effort my staff contact gave to ruin said trials. Sometimes I wonder if Wisconsin randomly disappeared from the planet, if anyone would notice. I might notice only because suddenly my trials might not start off with me planning all the things that should have been planned a month ago. Maybe some day.

Tuesday night for Young Women’s, the young women planned a prom for the adults in the ward. They did a really good job, they even had someone there to take pictures. Shad and I got volunteered to teach a bit of West Coast to those that were interested so we had to go. Teaching turned out much better than I thought it would. We had never taught a class before so I was worried. I was also worried we would show people the first step, they would think it was dumb and opt to hug and turn with their significant other for the rest of the evening. It was not so. After teaching the basic, they asked for another step and after that step they asked for another. We stopped at 3 – You’re not going to retain that many steps anyway from one class – plus, Shad had lost his voice by then.

My parents also made it up to Ogden Friday night to go to dinner and see our house. They didn’t come to the house warming because they were in the Grand Canyon so they hadn’t seen any of the changes we’ve made. They seemed to like them and we proceeded to the Oaks up Ogden canyon. It’s a delicious burger joint with a delightful patio right on the river. The food was good as always even though I made everyone sit on the patio in the cold. I think it was worth it, plus we had blankets. We came home and they left. Shad and I watched Frost Nixon after that. I thought it was okay, the acting was good. I actually felt bad for Nixon at a few points during the movie – a part of me felt somewhat manipulated and angry when I realized that.

I’m now in the middle of my recent bout of coverage. I really just need to get used to it, the way our project schedule is this year, I won’t be getting much of a break from it. It’s a good thing the weekdays off are delightful, that makes it a bit better. Plus I always get so much done when I’m on coverage. I’m already psyching myself up to sleep in Friday morning so I won’t want to die on my back shift Friday night.