Petroglyphs in our own Backyard

There's this cool place along the Santa Clara River gorge just a few miles from our house that has some Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs. We heard good things from some people, and we heard from others that it was a bust. We thought it was pretty great:)

Here are some pictures for you viewing pleasure:

New Skirt

I had this idea a long time ago, I don't even remember where I saw it, but I made a skirt out of an XL T-shirt from Walgreen's for $1. I just chopped it off at the armpits and made a casing for some elastic and sewed it up. It's really comfy, I just wish I had finished it before it got too cold to wear skirts to work.

I cropped my head out if it cuz all my makeup was gone and I had a funny look on my face and I didn't want to set the self timer again and feel stupid smiling at the camera for 10 seconds just to get another weird look on my face from wondering when it was going to take my picture:)

The Stair Transformation!

We finally scraped the asbestos popcorn ceiling off of our stairs, well, Logan did at least:)

First we taped an absurdly large amount of plastic to the stairs to prevent popcorn spillage.

Then we brought in a plank. This is why I did very little to help with this project.

Then we sprayed the popcorn with water since asbestos is dangerous in dusty airborne form, and scraped it off. No pictures of the texturing. Sorry, but it was a messy procedure too.

Then we painted, but it looked bare. So we decided we needed art. But art is expensive, and we couldn't agree on what to get. Logan wanted modern and colorful, all I wanted was simple and earthy. So we compromised and it was cheaper.

He got modern and colorful, I got simple. And the best part is that we made it ourselves. We bought canvases from Michael's with a 40% off coupon, and used masking tape and some paint testers from Home Depot.

Total: $24. Way cheaper than anything either of us wanted at the store.

Friendly Visitor

We have been finding these cute little guys around a little bit lately. But this is the only one we've caught to get a picture of. He is about as big around as a juicy night-crawler and maybe 6-7 inches long. This is the type of snake that my mother-in-law sawed in half with a plastic butter knife on our front porch just before we moved in. We did a little research and we found that he is a very good little snake to have around. He eats bug larva and the best, scorpion larva. Needless to say we will be keeping these little fellas around! I'd much rather have worm sized snakes than scorpions! He was really fun to watch for a while, but was then released back where we found him.

Logan's Birthday

Logan's birthday was a month ago. Yep, he turned 30! For his birthday, we invited all of our Sunday School teens over for a party. Only 5 came, but it was fun to get to know them better and to have people to party with:) I took balloons to his office, but I didn't get a picture of that. The pictures are of his party, opening presents, and of his favorite present: a fancy new hardhat.

So this is old news...Swiss Days

As some of you know from the Swiss Eggs post, Logan is a descendant of the original Swiss settlers in Santa Clara. This year for Swiss Days (held in Santa Clara every September) was a celebration for the 150th year since the Swiss came to Santa Clara. Logan gave a speech about his Great-great-grandpa Gottlieb Blickenstorfer who was among those settlers. We also had a Swiss Days cow this year basically you can buy a cow and decorate it and put in downtown and people vote for the best one. This year was all about our connection to the Swiss settlers.

The Blickenstorfer name died out, but his daughter married a Blake.

Putting our cow downtown.

Logan giving his speech.

First Bulletin Board

I made this today. It's right outside my computer lab.

So about my new job. I'm the computer lab assistant (AKA Teacher) at Sunset Elementary. I started last Monday and the last three days have been fun! It's not really what I was expecting. It's a lot harder! I really like it though. I get to work with k-5 and everybody comes in at least once a week. The kindergarten and first graders are fun, and very challenging. But I love the fourth and fifth graders because I can do so much with them!

RIP Malibu Cleaners

Kind of ironic that I wrote a post from there on Saturday, because what we affectionately called "M1" is no more.

I received this picture from my very awesome manager, Rochelle, at 10:21 PM last night. I was flabbergasted. I was the last one to work there before the fire. The owners were there when I left, but I was the last one working. I couldn't believe my eyes. INSANE!

I also started a new job at Sunset Elementary this morning. How crazy is it that God provided a job that would sustain me through this short term unemployment at Malibu. This morning after I got ready for work I googled it and the pictures that came up from The Spectrum made me sick. (follow the link to see all the pictures).

These were especially troubling: (it won't let me upload them so my commentary will be by picture number). Image 8: The ball of fire looks to be directly where the cash register was located. Large orders were kept just behind the counter. Also, I suffered through washing all of those windows just the day before:( Image 13: The flames seem to be coming from the boiler room. Image 1: I can only assume the fire was being fed by the dry cleaning chemical in that area of the store. Unfortunately several thousand dollars worth of chemical were transferred from the Red Cliffs location to "M1" Saturday afternoon.

After I got off work at the school today I drove down to check it out. This is what I saw:

Heartbreaking. Though not nearly as sickening as the night photos with flames. The store is a total loss. Nothing I could see is salvageable. The eeriest thing I saw though (but couldn't get close enough to get a picture of) were the charred, empty hangers, whose clothes have been burned away.

Also this:

Which is the same washer which was featured in my "Things I love about Malibu Cleaners" post.

For now, all operations have been moved to the other location across town. There are plans to rebuild, and when I was there, the framers were already there checking it out. This just really seems surreal to me, but I am so grateful that no one was there when it started.

Saturday Musings at Malibu Cleaners

I am working today, and just like every Saturday I see "Just Married" couples washing their cars at the carwash next to the cleaners. It always makes me smile because, believe it or not, this is where we washed our car the morning after we were married. I can't believe it was four years ago and that I had no idea this dry cleaner even existed. It just makes me smile and wonder what the future holds for those couples.

Our Trip to the Strip (Arizona That is).

Just yesterday after Sydney's vigorous garage sale-ing with my sister Anisa we had it planned to drive out to Mt. Trumbull to see this plaque we heard about where the old Blake Family saw mill was and since we were going that far out we decided to see other sites while we were at it.

Some of the places we visited were Parashaunt where Dad ranched in the early 90s (a long ways out of the way from Trumbull, but I wanted to see places I remembered, not a nice as I remembered it, but nothing ever is). It was very dusty.Then we went to the Saw mill site not much there but the plaque was nice.

Afterward I had decided the day before to hike to the top of Vulcan's Throne. Which is a volcano on the rim of the Grand Canyon at Toroweap. Sydney has been wanting to hike to the top of a volcano, she was thinking the one by diamond valley, but there aren't to many volcanoes that have a cooler name and a cooler location than this one, so go big or go home right? The view hiking up the side was awesome and it was a pretty day.

Then we went to the typical look off to check things out before it became dark and ate peaches and cream.


Then we drove the 100+ miles home 60 of which is dirt were we slayed many small animals with the car (they're just dumb, Don't sleep in the road!).

Beaver Mountains

Last weekend (or maybe two weeks ago) we went on a trip to the Beaver Mountains. We had planned a trip for a while since it was the only weekend Logan's manager didn't have written off (he takes all the good ones). We left Thursday night after I got off work and drove up to LeBaron Reservoir. The plan was to camp that night and then ride the 4-wheeler down to my moms (75 miles away) and stay the night there and then drive back up to LeBaron again.

We made it about 20 miles to a place called Big John's Flat to discover that the only 4-wheeler road that would lead us to my mom's was closed still since the trial had been washed out my an avalanche last winter. So we drove back to camp, packed everything up and decided to make my mom's house our base camp:)

We spent the day next day on the West Mountain and the surrounding area. It ended up working nicely and we had a whole bunch of fun:)

Gorgeous view of where I grew up.

Haha! Only Richfield would spell its self wrong. This seriously made my day. Stupid Richfield:)

I was feeling much better after purchasing me a butt pad from Jorgensen's Honda.

Malibu Cleaners:)

As many of you know, I have recently went back to my old job at Malibu Cleaners. I was very fortunate that they took me back:) And I even got a raise. It was hard to adjust to the heat again, but it has been kinda fun. All the same old great people work there, like my manager Rochelle and my buddy Perla. Here are some pictures of my favorite favorite things...

LOVE all the Retro equipment:)

LOVE seeing all the wedding and formal gowns:)

LOVE cleaning my Wedding dress for FREE!!!!!!

New Rafting T-Shirts

Hey Everyone I've Been working real hard on a new T-Shirt and I want to order some if people want some it's cheaper to get more
This is one of the Backs
This is an other one of the Backs

This will go on the front Maybe
This is my original art that will go on the front or the back
This is for Tanner

I have also thought of putting a list of the rivers and years that we've been on and or some of the logos of the brands that we use ie: hyside sealine nrs etc.


Tell me if you're interested they're 20 bucks a t-shirt I think.

San Juan River Trip

Most of the time the river was shallow enough to walk in.
The only rapid.
The boys jumping off a rock at one of our campgrounds. I don't know how it was deep enough to jump!
Enjoying myself.
I love this picture of Logan:) Minus the hat and glasses....:)

Memorial Day (A little late)

Here are a few pictures from our Memorial Day adventure in Escalante, Ut. It started at 2:30 am when Logan had to go to work. I went too and we left for Escalante straight from the job site. The reason we went is because it was the dedication of the new Hole in the Rock visitor's center. They graded (?) the road for the occasion making it possible to survive a trip down to the Hole in the Rock without wanting to die (too much). We did a little hiking down the road, we would have done more except the wind was blowing SO bad that we got sandblasted the whole time.

Me in a slot canyon.
Logan in a really cool slot canyon. Not in Spooky or Peek a Boo. It was supposed to be, but I got us lost:(
Logan with Lake Powell in the background at Hole in the Rock.
Me at Dance Hall Rock.
The view of our campground.
And for your viewing pleasure...the main event. My sister and her family were in a play about the Hole in the Rock. It was hilarious! Very good time! Of course I cried through the whole thing because at this point I had been awake for nearly 20 hours!