We rock

I can’t believe summer is officially over. I can’t believe how fast it went this year. I had always heard that when you get older time goes faster because your days are so much more the same than when you were little. I’m starting to see how true that is. One minute it’s Monday and the next it’s Friday. I don’t know where the time goes.

On to updating you on our latest activities. Two weekends ago we had one of the busiest Saturdays I can remember having in quite awhile. I started off the day with tutoring – something I haven’t done much of this summer since the children were coming mostly during the day. I came home did some cleaning and got ready for our fun filled evening. We had a birthday party, wedding and show to attend, in that order. I was actually amazed how well the times worked out for each event.

First was Annie’s hubby’s birthday party, he was turning the big 30 so she planned a surprise party. We were a bit late due to cutting up the watermelon so we missed the surprise. Sorry Steve! It was wonderful to see Annie and all of my other girlfriends. I don’t get to see them enough. Hopefully they will come and play after we’re done with vacation. After only staying a little bit it was off to our next destination, our friend Brandi’s wedding.

We made it out to Toole in 40 minutes – after the Iphone saved us from getting stuck on traffic on the 201. Thanks Iphone for keeping us on schedule. Brandi was a fellow co-op at the company Shad and I met at as co-ops. She is an adorable girl and made a beautiful bride with her bright green shoes. Totally sweet. She had been together with the groom for years and still Shad and I had never met him. He seems like a nice guy though.

On our way out of Toole, there was a quick stop at Del Taco for some food (we had missed the food at both the party and wedding and didn’t want to wait to eat another 40 minutes). We arrived at the Sweater Friends show in Jake’s backyard only about 5 minutes late – super sweet! We watched his cousin Ben perform a few songs then it was our turn. It was a bit chilly for August and by the end, I couldn’t feel my fingers but all and all, it was a good show with all of our favorite people.
A
fter the show, instead of driving home we opted to sleep at my parents since I was singing in my parent’s ward the next morning – Don’t worry Dublin came with us and stayed too. We’re not that bad of parents.

The musical number with my sister went pretty well, I think it was better than the first time we sang it in her ward. That done and over we returned to my parents for a Sunday afternoon nap and family dinner. It was almost like a mini vacation away from home to see all of my friends.

This last Wednesday night was designated our monthly craft night. We opted to do a craft from Martha’s Encyclopedia of Crafts. Ideal. We made Sand candles. Martha told us to use fine grain sand, we used paver sand – just a slight difference. Needless to say, our candles didn’t look like Martha’s. We’ll try harder next time.

Just as the pizza arrived Shad and Jared came home from golfing. We ate and put them to work assembling the slip n slide. It’s not craft day without slip n slide. This is maybe why the church encourages people to have kids while they’re young instead of spending their evening modifying slip n slides for adult use, they’re engaged in righteous causes.

This weekend I was supposed to be on coverage (should have retracted my previous blog post about not having it for awhile). It was called on Friday which left me with a very open weekend. Friday Shad went to SLC for his brother’s birthday party. I got home too late to go. I heard it was a good time though. I lounged on the couch and watched TV. Saturday I cleaned the house and then my family came up for dinner. My sister’s husband was in town for the weekend (he is going to school in LA now and Kristen is still working and living here) so we all wanted to get together. If was fun to have them come up to us for a change. We went to dinner at the Oaks and Shad and I got to ride in Scott’s beamer. It was good times in the canyon.

Sunday I slept in super late and went to the 3:00 session of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. It was a wonderful meeting despite the lady that had to yawn every five minutes so loudly right next to me.

I’m super excited to head to Great Basin this weekend. It should be a fun trip, then it’s off on our cruise. It’s going to be a good three weeks.

A Fair Time

Last Friday night Shad and I trekked on over to the Weber County Fair grounds for the Weber County Fair. Who doesn't love a good fair? Animals, terrible cover bands and fried food. I know of no other place you can compete in such exciting areas as table settings and terrifying looking dolls. Here are a bunch of pictures from our fair experience.




We Considered picking up a new organ in the vendor building, because organs are fun, the display says so.
I think I might suggest these to my company for cost savings. Forget Sharpies - Skerples are all the rage!
And how could we go home with out a transformable robot? He looks like someone very familiar.
We then braved the animal areas, we saw some really fat lazy pigs. We found one that was awake.
There were some adorable sheep - Shad still won't let me get one! I keep on telling him Dublin likes sheep but he thinks otherwise. Plus he keeps on telling me they're stupid animals and will get into trouble. I made sure he didn't say those things around the sheep - their feelings would have been hurt.


We paid 50 cents to get our faces painted. Thanks Weber County Library.This is why you should pay more than 50 cents for face painting. This lightening bolt was no where near this obese in the example.

Lastly I think the fair confirmed Dublin's previous goat existence. When we visited the petting area which animals were shoving their heads through the cages and stealing food to get attention? Sheep is the wrong answer, it wasn't the really obese cow either. You guessed it, the goats. They loved new people especially children just as much as our dog does. He will stop at nothing to get their attention!

Oh yeah, we did come home with a new friend for Dublin. His name is Zeke, short for Ezekiel. He's a Dwarf African Frog. I showed him to Dublin when we came home and he tried to eat him. I say new friend, and he thinks I wonder if he tastes good. Zeke lives on the kitchen counter now, safe from Dublin's reach.

PS - The other day Dublin caught a grasshopper and I had to rescue it from his mouth. I saw him chasing something in the grass then suddenly he just stopped and sat down. I went over and opened his mouth and sure enough, there was a little green grasshopper sitting on his tongue. Lucky for the grasshopper our dog doesn't believe in chewing things he eats, he hopped out and went on his merry way. I guess since he can't catch birds, grasshoppers are the next best thing.

Narrowed?

This last weekend Shad and our friend Jen took a trip down to Zion to do the narrows. It was a weekend full of adventure as always. We left Thursday night after work and drove down to Mount Carmel, Utah. On our way, Shad thought there was a gas station at the exit on I-15 to get onto Highway 20. There was not, and the gas light was on. Since Panguitch was only 30 miles away, we thought we could make it.

Apparently our guesstimation was 5.7 miles wrong because 5.7 miles outside of Panguitch we ran out of gas. It was a first for all of us and we got to hear all the gossip on the local gas station drama from the triple A guy when he finally showed up so really I think we are much better for it.

We arrived to our campsite without issue to find a note on the office door saying we could camp at site 1 or to the left of the cabin. Turns out the RV park in Mount Carmel doesn't really have the tent sites it advertises on it's website. We opted for left of the cabin because there was grass there.

The next morning we got up and headed to Zion to catch the shuttle to Chamberlain's Ranch (where the Narrows hike starts). I was pretty excited we were doing the shuttle since the car fiasco you have to do is such a pain. It might have been worth it though.

I guess our shuttle driver was on a schedule because he drove up the dirt road to the ranch (typically a 2 hour drive) like we were being chased by Nazis. We made it there in 1 hour and 15 minutes. New record maybe? Who cares? All I know is all of us were so car sick by the end and neither Jen nor I have EVER been car sick in our lives. I literally stopped talking to Jen mid sentence and turned around to face the front of the van or I would have pucked all over her. Yikes.

I think I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...
Just getting into the narrows.

Look at how fresh and happy I look. Ready for lots of fun river hiking.

Jen told me I wasn't allowed to wave.

Can you find me in this picture? Jen was going for something artsy. Apparently that means you can't use a flash...

They made me get in the water to go see the waterfall. My husband decided it would be a good time to give me a nice wet hug. Thanks hubby.

Then Jen made us take a "cute one."

This is a picture from where we camped. Very pretty. I think we went to bed at about 6:00 pm though. We were tired!

Still day one somewhere in the river.

I don't remember why Shad was making this face. I thought it was awesome enough to include though.

So at this point, my hip flexors are starting to really hurt and I'm praying they will be miraculously healed for day 2 A.K.A. death river day. See how I can still hide the pain with a smile?

Here I am about 2 hours into day 2. See how I can't hide the pain through a smile? No miracles happened overnight while sleeping on the hard ground hoping the animals running around near my head wouldn't run over my head (it happened last time I was sleeping in the narrows). They didn't.

Here we are in more really cold water Jen and Shad made me get into. I got out to "take pictures."

Here are Jen and Shad playing on yet another waterfall. I took one for the team and stayed dry.

And that's where the pictures end. The waterfall was just too much for the digital camera and it decided to slip away to the big white flash in the sky. Don't feel too bad for it. Jen's camera had already withstood being dropped in the ocean and getting sand stuck in it (hence the grinding noise it made when you turned it on) and being bashed against a rock in Moab while Jen was kneeing Jared in the face (the lcd screen was a gonner so you never knew if your pictures were actually being taken until after the trip). Now Jen gets to get a new camera. Bonus!

It's probably best the camera died, none of the pictures of me would have been good. I can't remember a time when I was in more pain. Luckily it only hurt when I had to pick up my leg which when you're hiking through a river full of rocks happens just about every step. Other than that, the trip was a success.

When the river finally ended, we went back to our campsite (really a patch of grass next to a cabin in a trailer park so not really a campsite) and made the camping staple, cheese stuffed bacon wrapped hot dogs and went to bed. The next morning it was back home to see our puppy and take a nap.

Whoopee!

Guess what, I have good news – I don’t have any more coverage for the foreseeable future. Do you know how good that feels? It feels really good. We’re also going on vacation this week. Also very delightful.

I’m not going to fill you in on the weekend, I was asleep so I don’t really know what Shad did all weekend. Last night we had a very…interesting experience.

Jen’s mom is in town for a month long visit. Jen’s mom wanted to attend some sort of play while she was out here. Jen told me this a few months ago and I suggested a few of the companies in Salt Lake thinking she wanted something great. Apparently any play would do, including something at the local community theatre. Shad and I had the pleasure of attending with them. Without further ado, I bring you my review of Whoopee!

Okay so going into the play there was quite the discussion prior at work as to what it was about. Many people guessed Whoopi Goldberg, they would be wrong. The description on the playhouse website told of singing cowboys and flashy costumes. Okay, I asked Jen if it would be like High School Musical but with cowboys, she told me yes – As a side note, after the play was over we soon realized we were thinking of different high school musicals. Me, the delightful Disney production filmed at East High, Jen was thinking of her actual high school musical. She grew up in a small town and in order to have all necessary characters for the play, girls had to play men. Very different mental pictures.

The program explained the play was written in the 1920’s about the time when musical theatre was just getting its start. A possible excuse for the spectacle to come? As the theatre started to fill, it became apparent the mid twenty age range was not their target audience-more like seventy. Jen assured me we would be in the majority once the cast was on stage. Participating in community plays is all the rage amongst our demographic, right? With the opening chorus, it became apparent we were still not in the majority. And that’s where things went wrong.

Now, I felt bad for the actors because I know my facial expression showed my moderate disgust as they poorly danced around the stage and sang. We were in the second row and I knew they could see it, but I was too appalled to hide it. Things took a turn for the confusing about the time of the third scene. A character was talking to the “love of his life” begging her to not marry Sheriff Bob and run away with him to live with “his people.” With his effeminate gestures, orange spray tan and loafers, he clearly wasn’t straight. I was confused why he wanted to bring Sally back to “his people”. I mean the lace wedding dress she was wearing was a bit unfortunate but not enough to call in the Queer Eye guys, right? I turns out he was supposed to be an Indian (loafers=moccasins). I thought Waninis was just a new trendy name, kind of like spelling Tom with a th. I’m glad Jen was there to help me figure out what “people” he was referring to. It was still pretty distracting. I know gay actors and have seen them act absolutely convincingly straight on stage. Were the pickings that slim? Jen didn’t help with her chuckles and comments.

Things got better once Sally and Harry? (Herbert, Walter, Chuck – I don’t remember his name) ran away. Now those two actors were surprisingly wonderful. If the play had just been them for the remainder, we wouldn’t have solved anything plot wise but it would have been a good experience.

I think Jen’s comment after the play sums it up nicely, “In high school we had girls playing men and they did a better job than that guy.” It was a very entertaining night, but not for the right reasons.

They were roasted

Sorry for no real update until now this week, I was waiting to be on backs to have something to do. I'm sure you've all been dying to hear how the hot dog roast went. I have one word - Fantastic!

I was a little worried it was going to be super hot, that's why it didn't start until 7. I really wish our backyard had a bit more shade. Hopefully it will in the next year or so. Since the house is pretty much done, next year's project is the backyard. Gulp.

The evening started off with everyone roasting their hot dogs on the fire - or getting Shad to do it on the grill (cheaters). I was actually surprised how many people roasted their own. Also surprised how hot the fire was, the paito around the fire pit needs to be enlarged a pit - see paragraph above. Here's everyone (mostly my fellow ward members) enjoying dinner.

After dinner and popcicles, and the sun had disappeared behind the house across the street, it was time to play. Jake and I played for about an hour since we were the only ones and it was really delightful. It was nice seeing everyone sprawled out on the grass enjoying the music instead of awkwardly standing in a venue.

Jake and Jess also brought some of their neices and nephews to the roast, they were really cute. They even got up to dance during some of the music. Ah to be young again.

After the music, we roasted marshmallows on the fire and called it a night. I can't wait to do a similar thing in a few weeks at Jake and Jess' house. There's information on our blog if your interested.

Non Sweater Friends related news - Dublin made Shad go and get him a chair to sit on the other day in the backyard. He's kind of a high maintenance pit bull. I thought he only made me do it because I taught him to get on the chair. I would be wrong.

Coping with transition

For those of you that don’t know my company announced a few weeks ago it was laying some people off. The goal was to lay off about 600 salaried people worldwide. We found out about the layoffs about 3 months ago. Luckily the Ogden facility was told our impact would be very limited which was nice, but no one could give us specific numbers. Yesterday was the day of layoffs and not surprisingly Ogden only lost one employee. By yesterday afternoon, work was finally back to normal, it was great.

K-C also has an employee assistance program, if you or family members are struggling, they will pay for you to go see a counselor etc. I guess it’s company policy to have an EAP person present at every facility when a lay off occurs. The EAP person at our plant happened to pick the conference room by my cube to set up shop for the day. Now normally that would be fine, but after lunch a few of my co workers stopped by to pick up treats Jen had left on my desk. We started talking about what we had heard from some other facilities and departments. One of them brought up the story about the French union workers that had wired their facility with explosives because they were angry about wages. The news story reported they had agreed to go into negotiations on Thursday and had removed the gas canisters but promised they would put them back in “15 minutes” if negotiations didn’t go the way they wanted. We had a pretty good laugh at the ridiculousness of wiring the facility with explosives in the first place but we thought it even worse that the facility would allow them to be put back. I guess this was the wrong day and place to be joking about something like that.

Mid conversation the EAP guy walked over to my cube and explained he couldn’t help but over hear our conversation. He reminded us that he was over in the conference room if we felt like we needed to talk. We just sat there in awkward silence until he walked away. I then pointed my finger at the one that had started the explosives conversation and jokingly told him that was obviously not an appropriate conversation to be having at work. The others walked away and the guilty party stayed for another treat. While we were still talking the EAP guy came back and handed us each an article, explaining he knew sometimes people didn’t want to talk about problems. The title of the article…Coping with Transition. I think the EAP guy should try and spend some more time around engineers before he comes back again. Maybe then he would realize the explosives conversation was a normal thing we had all been dying to get back to once we knew everything would be okay. He shouldn’t have been worried to hear that conversation, he should have walked away with a smile knowing we were all going to be just fine after yesterday.

It's Tuesday

Today might be Thursday for the rest of you but today is my Tuesday. There’s nothing like random coverage to totally screw with your schedule. Tomorrow will be my Friday though. I can’t wait until August when things hopefully will be back to normal. I say hopefully.

I’m pretty excited for the hot dog roast on Saturday. I think it should get a pretty good turnout which will be fun. I’m always nervous when we plan stuff in Ogden since I haven’t been here for a long time, I underestimate the number of people I know that might want to hang out at my house. Our house warming party was a good example of that.

I really need to text Jake and get a set list put together. I’m going to do that right now. Hold on.

Okay. Check and check. Speaking of the Sweater Friends we had an ideal show a few weeks ago. It started off as one of the weirdest places we’ve played but by the end of the show, we felt right at home.

We played at a place called the Boing Collective. It’s basically an anarchist bookstore/house. Jake had just told me about the bookstore part so when we pulled up to the address and it was a house, I was a little worried. When we walked in the house and set our stuff down, no one said a word to us. So we stood there awkwardly looking around. Jake went to go find Robin, the kid who had set up the show, only to be asked if he was looking for the girl Robin or boy Robin. While we were standing there two guys came in and asked for Steve Miller. The people in the house said they didn’t know a Steve. Then another guy said, isn’t there a guy living in the basement named Steve, but I don’t think his last name is Miller. They left. We stood there wondering why the people that lived in the house didn’t know the names of the other people who lived in the house. When we asked one person how many people lived there we were given a range. A range? We opted to sit out on the sidewalk in front until it was time to play.

By the time we did start to play, there were quite a few people there (more than the range?) which was surprising. When we started playing, it’s safe to say they were the most attentive audience we have ever played for. The other artists that played with us were amazing as well. I came home with 4 new cds.

Because of coverage I had Monday and Tuesday off this week. I took the opportunity to take my friend Jen down to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. I hadn’t been to an open house since the Vernal Temple was built so it was nice to go. I’m glad Jen was willing to go with me since I wanted to go on a weekday to avoid the line being long and slow. I was surprised at how small the temple seemed but it was beautiful as always. We also may have gotten yelled at in the celestial room by an usher. We had stopped so I could explain to Jen what the room represented and tell her a little about the temple. Apparently the 6 foot wide aisle way was not wide enough for the group behind us to go around.

After the temple we went back to our house and played on a slip n slide. I had told Shad awhile ago I wanted one (the kiddie pool got me in the mood) and he left me a note a few days ago with a Walmart giftcard that said “for a slip n slide.” I got up early Monday morning before the temple to go purchase said slide. Unfortunately the Walmart near us doesn’t sell slip n slides. LAME! Luckily Shopko came through for us. We brought it home and got it set up. Of course the pieces that were the most time consuming to put together were useless and got chucked to the side after two uses. I guess it’s the thought that counts. We had a delightful afternoon playing though the slide was not built long enough for two average sized adults. We have plans to extend it next time. Sorry for the lack of pictures…I’ve been lazy with the camera but you can imagine the good times that were had.

Also this week I got around to booking the stuff for our cruise in September. I heard there was an airfare war going on last week and decided to take advantage of it. I am already super excited for it. The countdown Carnival puts on their webpage when you log in doesn’t help either… 52 days.

We have a pretty full summer ahead of us trip wise. In two weeks, we’re going to Zion to do the Narrows with a few of my co-workers. At the end of August, hopefully we will be sailing around Catalina. Then we finish up the summer with our week long Caribbean cruise. Ideal. It seems like I tend to save up my vacation time just in case so the end of the year always ends up a lot busier.