Valentine's Day

This is what I got from Logan. So sweet:)

I had been talking about how nice it would be to get a mixed bag of M&Ms. So he bought me all kinds of M&Ms and mixed them. Why should you have to choose? :)

We finally went to the Wave

This is a taste of the Amazing photos we took.

Prints are available for purchase.
Oh yeah I charge now, because I bought a nice camera and that makes me a professional photographer don't cha know.

Inspired by Libby's Freebies Post

First of All I want to congratulate Libby on writing a post that is really interesting and pretty concise.

However, I do have some questions?

The first 5, I get, they would typically be on women’s list of freebies, but Kevin James Libby, Really? He doesn’t even have blue eyes.

Now since most of us don’t know the real person behind the celebrity I was wondering which character they played inspired you admiration.

Was it the Jason Bateman from Juno or from The Switch?

Was it the underage/illegal Zac Efron from the mentioned High School Musical or was it the other underage/illegal Zac Efron from 17 Again?

Was it the Heroic romantic Jake Gyllenhaal from Source Code or was it the ruggedly homosexual Jake Gyllenhaal from Brokeback Mountain?

Was it the Leo DiCaprio from Titanic that everybody loved or the recent old grumpy one from J. Edgar?

Ryan Gosling, you explained him very well thank you.

Lastly was it the Kevin James from King of Queens or was it Paul Blart?


Ps. My mother and sister are very sick with stomach flu so tattling on me right now would be very inconsiderate to the unwell:)

Posted by Logan

The Beard Project of 2011

It took me 30 years.

I've lived here for 30 years and never got around to hiking Angel's Landing in Zion. I've hiked the West rim trail twice now but after hiking 11 miles, was always to tired to venture out on the edge. The switch backs always seemed way to daunting. "It would be like hiking the Navajo loop in Bryce canyon only 10 times worse," I would tell myself. But it was on Sydney's bucket list so we took off with our new camera in tow. Come to find out it really wasn't that bad the trail is paved most of the way and the chain is not that scary, you just need to be patient and take your time. It was cool we got some cool pictures in the end and Sydney was even able to call her mom from up on top and induce a heart attack.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you from us and our new camera:)

Updating the Basement

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Belated Birthday Post

I turned 24 almost two weeks ago. This one went a little less eventfully than last year when I found my first (and only) grey hair on my birthday.

All I asked for this year was a really good steak. And Logan delivered:) He also got me an awesome pink pouch to hold ammunition when we go skeet shooting. Fun stuff!

I also got lots of other fun stuff, like an immersion blender (been wanting one of those) and a hilarious joke played on my with Christmas stuff (Thanks Shellie). I also got money from the parents and I finally decided on a new kitchen faucet since the old one leaked terribly. So basically I got all I could ask for and more. Here are a few pictures to commemorate the day.

Ward Christmas Party

Last night was our ward Christmas party. The theme was Christmas around the World. Logan was asked to represent Australia since that is where he served his mission.

His job was to talk about Australia's Christmas traditions. Which basically consists of going to the beach and having barbecue's, hence the board shorts and surf board. He was one of the only one's wearing a costume which made it extra fun. He did great!

Oh, and the bishopric got invited onto the stage to hula. Just thought I'd throw that in there too:) Such good sports.

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.