Swiss Days and Elder's Quorum Breakfast

We were able to celebrate Swiss Days! Sydney was a little worried that the baby would come and she wouldn't be able to attend, but alas he has not graced us with his presence.   The day started with the infamous Pancake Breakfast.  It's hosted by the Santa Clara 3rd Ward Elders Quorum and it's in our drive way because we live the closest to the town hall.

I found a very pretty hand model for this picture thanks Jeff.

This is the President and counselor setting up for the breakfast they also do all the cooking. 

Here are some of the "Cool Kids" hanging out on our front porch.

The breakfast was a success, nobody left poop on our toilet seat this year.

Here people lining up for the parade, we counted 18 members of the 3rd Ward. How many do you see?

It was a fun day and we got hit with some really good candy at the parade.

Baby Shower

This is very much belated, but since I still haven't had the baby I thought I'd kill some time blogging about my baby shower.  I had one thrown for me in June by some sweet ladies in my ward.  And then over Labor Day my adorable sisters-in-law threw me another one for family and close friends.  The theme was Dr. Seuss, which was so fun because I love children's books.  

I stole these pictures from Anisa since I'm not cool enough to remember a camera:)

 These were the invitations, they were like library cards with a cute little poem requesting that guests bring a children's book instead of a card.  We got some really nice books which I'm sure our little baby will enjoy very much!

 This was the food table.  All the foods were Dr. Seuss themed and really fun.  We had: Cat in the Hat fruit kabobs, Hop on Popcorn, Thing 1 Thing 2 cupcakes, Truffala Seeds (skittles), Green (deviled) eggs, and Ham (sandwiches), and yummy Pink Ink punch.

So much work went into this and I really appreciate it.  None of my family were able to make it since my mom got the flu, my oldest sister was hospitalized due to complications from a surgery earlier this summer, my other sister was also sick and none of my nieces can drive:) There were still a ton of people who attended.  Most of Logan's aunts, grandma, and cousins were there and my friends Moe and Jessica.  It was a lot of fun, and Baby Blake made a haul:) I think this kid's gonna be just fine with so many people who love him, now if he'll only decide to be born!

That night Logan had a "Dad-chelor" party thrown by Lucas.  

This is the only picture I have of the occasion.  Logan, Lucas, Ryan, Ron, and Craig (and possibly others, I wasn't there) went to Mesquite and ate at a buffet and then went skeet shooting somewhere along the highway on the way back.  The whole time all I could think about was how funny it would be if they got pulled over.  Imagine a minivan filled with men and fire arms:) Haha!  It was a fun and busy weekend, thanks to everybody who spent so much time planning it!

Tarantula Season

I've been on the lookout for Tarantulas lately because I remember that September is when I saw a ton of them last year.  They are surprisingly sneaky and I haven't seen a single one this year.  I thought that spray that Logan's cousin Cash recommended was working:)  Then yesterday a friend from the ward came to borrow our cow for the evening for her mom for Relief Society. (Goodness, all you people who don't live nearby are going to need an explanation.  It's a fake wooden cow for Swiss Days that people decorate.  I blogged about our cow last year too).  Anyway, while she's here picking it up she says, "Oh, why'd you squish him?"  And I was like, "What?"  It looks like this poor guy got backed over by Logan as he was going to work yesterday.  He's big.  Probably the biggest or second biggest one I've seen since living here.  Of course his splatter might make him look bigger:)  What I don't understand is why he didn't run away when Logan started the engine?  They are very skittish and fast, I can't believe it was dumb enough to get ran over.  

I put my foot in the picture to represent the size.

I surprisingly am not overly concerned with the tarantula situation.  I'm much more concerned with the scorpion situation.  I'm about 85% certain I saw one going down my stairs a while back (they, too, are surprisingly swift and can go down stairs much faster than I can), and now my poor sis-in-law has been stung in her house in Ivins and has since found another one.  Tarantulas are pretty nasty looking, but harmless.  But if I find another scorpion (or even what I think is one) I'm calling someone with bigger better poison to take care of the situation!

UPDATE: When I left this morning to go to Target, I apparently backed over a much smaller one.  Maybe they aren't as intelligent as I had given them credit for, poor stupid things.

The Flood

Since I'm not cool enough to take my own pictures, these have been "borrowed" from my facebook friends who are cooler than me and took pictures.  Especially Gina Prisbrey, her pictures rock:)

So it started raining at my house about 7-ish this morning.  We didn't think anything of it because it has been pouring here pretty regularly and giving us scares with our basement.  It rained all morning.  I went to hang out with Logan at work for a while and it still rained.  We went home for lunch and when we were done I was going to take Logan back to work and go grocery shopping.  When we left to take him back to Sunbrook, Sunset Blvd. was closed.  We thought the wash had flooded the road (again) and went down through the Santa Clara valley and made it there.  I was planning on going to Walmart to pick up a few things, but then I realized I didn't have my phone. In light of all the closures I thought I better go back and get my phone because I didn't want to risk having to navigate through some back roads to get home and get lost without a phone.  On my way back to the house the roads I had used to get to Sunbrook were now closed and I had to find another way back through the valley.  I made it.  Phew!  And I got my phone and tried to get back through the valley down to Dixie Drive so I could go shopping.  Now all the roads were closed and the police informed me that the valley had been evacuated.  I scoffed, I mean it wasn't even raining anymore.  But I obviously complied and went up into the Heights to get to Pioneer Parkway and into town.  On my way I drove past the little league ball fields by the Santa Clara Park.  They were full of water til you could only see a little of the fence poking out at the top.  Wow!  This was maybe about 1 in the afternoon.  It took me forever to get to Walmart.  As I drove I called Logan to complain about having to go around and told him that the valley had been evacuated.  He told me that they must be worried about the dike by the Middle School.  I was like, "What dike?"  I didn't even know it was there.

While I'm at Walmart I get a voicemail from the Santa Clara Emergency Response team.  I assume that I have now been evacuated.  Then I get to my car and the voicemail tells me that I have not been evacuated, but there has been a breach in the dike.  It said to go home (if I could get home) and stay home.  So I drive clear up and around again to get home and on the way pass by the ball fields again...only now they are empty.  Just a little water in the grass.  Apparently the dike really has been breached.  I knew it was bad, but seriously, I didn't know how bad.  I had no idea how much water that sucker was holding back.  I was obedient and I went home and stayed home.  Therefore I got interesting pictures of nothing;)

 Here is the flood.  Poor Dutchman's Gas Station!

 Inside Dutchman's Gas Station.  I think this picture came from their Facebook page.

And the monster "breach" in the dike.

Again, thanks to all those who I stole pictures from.  I think it's just Gina and Dutchman's.  All this went down about 1.5 blocks from my house, maybe less.  We are fine.  Thanks to all the many people who have called both Logan and I throughout the day to see if we are safe and dry.   Logan is down on Vineyard right now helping to dig people out.  Keep these poor folks in your prayers, it's going to be a long haul cleaning this up.  I just wish I wasn't 38 weeks pregnant and basically useless when it comes to shoveling mud.

Our Anniversary

I realized that I never posted about what we did for our actual 5th Anniversary.  It was pretty low key for us this year.  We just stayed home, made one of our favorite dishes (Shrimp Alfredo with broccoli and mushrooms) and drank some of the grape juice we bottled earlier this summer. 

That's what I get for washing my windows

Someday soon I'll have to worry about little finger prints on the inside of my window, but today all I've got is lizard prints on the outside:)

My Last Hoorah

I've been wanting to go on a small trip before I have this baby and don't ever get to go anywhere just me and Logan for a while.  We decided to go on a little road trip to Cascade Falls up by Navajo Lake and then we drove back on some back road to East Zion.

 It was really fun.  Logan packed us a picnic of some of my favorite things like homemade chicken salad, Cheetos puffs, Sprite, and Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies.  Logan is so sweet.  We left about 11 and ate when we got to the trail head.  Then we went on the short hike and it was really fun.

Then we drove for a long time and planned all the cool hikes we are going to go on when I'm not pregnant anymore.  We drove through Zion and talked about how it is one of our favorite places and how sad it is that there are so many hikes there we have never done. 

And Logan even found his new favorite kind of tree on the way home:)

Pepsi Vs. Diet Pepsi. Can You Taste The NutraSweet?

I forgot to mention this really funny story that happened over the 24th of July.  Sydney's Mom (Mama Holm) won't eat anything low fat, light, and especially sugar free.  She says and I quote, "It taste like NutraSweet, It burns the throat".  This happens to be one of my all time favorite Mama Holm quotes, of which there are a few, but I will not disclose them all.  At any rate, I have had this Idea in my head to see if she really could "Taste the NutraSweet."  You see Mama Holm is an avid Pepsi drinker and she will only drink regular Pepsi, it must be from the can, because plastic tastes bad and aluminum tastes better.  So while we were patiently waiting to watch the fireworks hours later we went to "The Sunny" and purchased one can of regular Pepsi and one can of Diet Pepsi, we wanted to do Pepsi Max but "The Sunny" didn't sell it and besides, it was really a battle with the NutraSweet riddled Diet Pepsi.

The 1st Test.

Pepsi vs. Pepsi.

I knew that if we told her there was going to be one diet and one regular she would find one,whether it was there or not.  You see, I think this "Burns the Throat" is all in her head.  So we opened up both cans so as to let her hear the sound of two cans cracking open and poured two identical glasses, both were filled with good old fashioned high fructose corn syrup regular Pepsi.  She didn't disappoint and actually she didn't like either of them particularly well.  She even stuck her tongue out at one of the glasses, then she made her choice on the other glass as being the diet, it made no sense, but my theory was upheld. She found a gross one.

The 2nd Test.

Pepsi vs. Diet Pepsi.

I thought to myself that was kind of mean psyching her out like that so I did a real test.  I think she must have thought I put diet in both this time around, because they were both still gross.  She first tried the diet and said, "Oh! this one is terrible!" then she tried the regular and said, "Oh! this one is worse! This is the Diet." I told her that she was wrong and apparently likes diet more than regular and strangely finds them both objectionable.  She didn't see the light from this test, because she still drinks her gross tasting regular Pepsi religiously.

The 3rd Test

Sydney vs. Pepsi

We gave Sydney the real test and she couldn't find the difference, and didn't like either one.

The 4th Test

Logan vs. Pepsi

Sydney gave me a taste test.  You see, on occasion I will drink a soda, and one of my favorites is Dr. Pepper.   There is a draw back though, when you don't drink sugary drinks they make my throat feel gross and coated.  That is why I prefer the Diet Dr. Pepper.  Same great taste, fewer calories and no gross throat.  There is a slight bitter after taste, but the pros out way the cons.  Knowing this about Dr. Pepper, I applied the same principles to the Pepsi. I found that one coated my throat and one did not, but had a slight bitter after taste.  I told Sydney my choice for Diet and I was right.

The moral of this story is that Tastes Tests are a fun way to spend a lazy 24th of July afternoon, and all you heavy Pepsi drinkers out there, don't dis on the diet apparently if you drink a lot of soda you can't tell the difference. 

P.s. I can't however tell the difference between real coke and cheap coke, my mother proved that to me years ago, but I think they're both gross.

#5

First let me open by saying that 5th Anniversaries are for old people:)

Now let's talk about how we have celebrated the last 4, shall we?

Wedding Day doesn't really count as an Anniversary, but we obviously celebrated that with a wedding and a trip to Las Vegas.  Basically the two things that stand out to me the most about our wedding day is being really really happy, and extremely hungry.  Nobody ever thinks about feeding the Bride and Groom:)

#1 was on a Sunday so we cooked dinner at home.  We ate the top of our wedding cake and then went for a walk down by the Virgin River.  Since our wedding we had accomplished a few things.  Logan had graduated from SUU with an engineering degree.  He got a job in St. George and we had moved from our 1 bedroom basement apartment to a very sunny and happy 2 bedroom on the East side of St. George. He'd taken me on my first rafting trip, I was working at Malibu cleaners and had just started school at Dixie.  We were feeling pretty optimistic about the future.

#2 we road tripped to Colorado (so Logan could shop for his upcoming rafting trip).  We went to Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, spent time in Durango and drove through some crazy mountain passes.  I think our actual anniversary was in Grand Junction (probably the most boring day of our trip, haha). Since our first anniversary I had started the Elementary Education Program at Dixie.  Logan was working hard at the St. George airport for insane hours.  I'd been on another rafting trip, but this one resulted in what I consider a near death experience:)  Good times!

#3 We celebrated with another large scale road trip.  This time we went up and visited Lucas and Shellie in Rock Springs and then went up to spend a few days in Yellowstone National Park.  This was before our actual anniversary since I was beginning to student teach in mid-August.  Since our last anniversary, Logan had rafted the Grand Canyon and we hadn't seen each other for two weeks and only talked on the phone once.  While he was gone my mom and I had went to Hawaii. 

#4 This year we celebrated by going for a hike in Zion and eating a Cuban sandwich at The Flying Monkey in Springdale (sadly we don't have a picture with both of us in it).  This had been a very eventful year for us.  I'd started and finished student teaching and graduated.  I'd wrecked my car while Logan was working out of town, and we had moved into this house.  We'd spent the year painting and settling in here. 

#5 is today.  A lot has happened in the last year.  We have still been slowly changing the house.  We realized that everything doesn't always go according to our original "5 year plan" but usually ends up being better than the plan.  Basically we did follow the plan, we're just not as wildly successful and rich as we had originally thought:)  We're still together and happy, we have a house, 2 bachelor's degrees and a baby coming.  I think we've got it pretty good.  And as weird as it is that we have been married for 5 years (hello!  We're so OLD!) I've never regretted it and I know that everything the future holds for us will be even better!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY LOGAN!

Hey Logan, Are You Lost?

I think so was my reply to my old college chap Ryan Anderson.  The Andersons are an institution in the little green valley of Monroe, UT. None the less my BE-EH-Utiful wife is a local and knows her way around.  Every year that we've been together we've made our own little trek to Monroe to celebrate Pioneer Day (the largest local holiday).  We awoke bright and early at 6:30am and drove straight there to get our spots on the correct side of the road (tsk tsk Kristy). Everybody was surprised that we came because we said we weren't on account of the both of us working the day before and after. Meghan was especially surprised when there was a creeper with a large camera taking unsolicited photographs of her marching in the parade.

The Parade was spectacular as usual. The two best floats are the old tractors which Sydney thinks my dad should get into it. and the pooper scooper though I'm not sure they are an official parade entry but they sure are entertaining for their rather long procession duration.       

This one captures the essence of the small town celebration.

John Deere was a True Patriot

Yeah, Monroe is classy like that.

This guy is a real farmer he drives a tractor in flip flops

He's doing so well.

We stayed the whole day hung out with the family we even bought a hot dog at the park from Jacey to support the freshman class at Big Bad South Sevier High School, Go Rams! We tried to catch up with Jacey and Justin at the Concert at the Middle School before the Awesome firework show but he was sitting way too close to the band and I was not going to hurt my ears for that long listening to that woman sing. So we moved back about 200 plus feet to a more comfortable decibel, and we didn't see them the rest of the night but we had a great spot for the fireworks. The Fireworks in Monroe are great they are very bright and you are really close to the action I recommend them to anyone.  We drove straight home and got home at 1:00, makes for a long day and a rough day at work but it was worth it.

On a side note Mama Holm is selling her prized 1994 Buick Regal Custom.  It has a plenty powerful 3.8 liter V6 engine, powered leather bucket seats, and comes in a charming sea-foam green.  The perfect car for the needy high school student.  Low blue book value of $1300 offering a $100 discount for cash.  Hurry this inventory is priced to move!

Girl's Camp

I headed up to Girl's Camp after the last day of teaching summer school on Thursday.  Just one of my many interesting duties as a Beehives adviser.  I'm not really much of a girl's camper and never really have been.  I think I might have gone 3 years when I was in Young Women's, but I found that camp is much more enjoyable as a leader who can come and go as she pleases and pick and choose activities to attend:)

I got my hair braided by the talented and beautiful Cam.

 Proof that I went to Girl's Camp 7 months pregnant.  My belly was somewhat of a novelty to girl's I have never met before. 

 I felt really really old signing them off on their certifications.

And these are the leader bunks, the girls' ones looked the same only their section was much larger and slept 27 girls instead of 6.  The top bunks are seriously like 6 feet up there.  They were kind to me and I slept on the bottom.  Oh and the bathrooms were in one of these storage boxes too and they flushed and were SO NICE!

Aside from eating deep fried donuts at 10pm and puking in the night with Breauna it was really fun:)  Yep, I only threw up twice with this pregnancy until girl's camp.  Now my total is up to 4:) Oh the memories.

What that Storm looked like at our House

Logan was home teaching, so I took some pictures because I didn't think he's believe me if I just told him:)

Home Economical

 Since my sister and mother have been giving all my father's tomatoes away to strangers on Facebook, I thought I had better go over there while they were both gone and get some for Sydney and myself.
We started the day with big plans we gathered two grocery sacks full from the resting location on my fathers infamous wood burning stove and went to the store to purchase other supplies for the gallons of product we thought we would end up with.  Little did we know three hours of time and 30 kilo-watt hours later we would end up with 3.5 quarts of juice and 3 pints of spaghetti sauce.  Not the gallons we were imagining earlier.

We broke Sydney's mother's cardinal rule of not eating what had sealed but since we were planning on having spaghetti for dinner we tried a bottle that's why some are missing from the picture.  It was good and we were delightfully surprised, especially since we got discouraged when my mother told me there wasn't a recipe and we had to use one from the internet (not from pinterest).

Much of the time and electricity were used to heat up this massive water bath of my mother's.

The picture doesn't do it justice we have no idea how big it is, but it is way more than our ceramic stove top can handle. It seems silly to spend well over an hour heating the water up to boil the bottles for 20 minutes then dump the water out.  We could have bathed a dog or a large toddler in that thing.

Then if that wasn't enough Sydney had this idea to make cantaloupe jelly, to save some of our delicious cantaloupe.  It tastes good, but we would rather eat the three batches of apricot jam we made three weeks ago.  I think the jelly would have been better if we had found the recipe on pinterest:).

Next weekend we'll probably attempt to make grape juice and some jelly any one that wants to come help is welcome.

Old Lady to New Baby

We have been slacking not posting about the most recent room make over that we have done.  This was the office room of my mother's while she lived here.  She had decorated during the phase of her life when she was watching several hours of home design shows on cable networks (i.e. Design on a Dime, Trading Spaces).  Any who it was painted very thoroughly in two shades of "Old Lady" green.

 It's not just my mother even Sydney's mom likes that color, in fact she recently had "Old Lady" green vinyl siding put on her house.  When we moved into the house I personally found this room the most offensive, but we painted the faux finished blue kitchen first because Sydney loathed it. 

The reason for changing this room is because as most of you know we will be having a baby boy in September and this room is the only other bedroom upstairs with us, and no son of mine is going to live in an "Old Lady" green room.  The color I chose and Sydney consented to was orange, we picked this before we knew the gender thinking it was non-cliche gender neutral color.  After we found out we were having a boy we still wanted the orange room and went with it.

It took us over a week to finish it because of the well glued on wall paper and the ceiling was painted green, and then all the molding was an off white shade of green.  Many stages and coats later; the orange took 4 coats of paint/primer paint.  Which by the way we tried the new Glidden duo paint/primer it worked fine for the white and grey colors, but the orange was runny. So if you're going bold, stick with the Behr it's the better paint anyway. 

We got it all done and it looks great.  We still have some decorating to do and quilts to make but we should get it done before the baby remembers that his room wasn't decorated.

Still Getting Goodness From Our Garden

We planted a pretty big garden this year, and except for the beans and tomatoes and cucumbers we did pretty well.
We had a big haul of asparagus as usual, and a real bumper crop of summer squash and zucchini.  We did okay on corn and bell peppers, and the cucumbers produced but weren't edible.  Except to my mom, her taster must be broken:)  We had bad luck with tomatoes as one 6-pack was mislabeled and was actually cherry tomatoes, and the other 6-pack all died except for two plants.  And the beans died without ever producing anything.

This, however, is my favorite crop.  We took a chance and experimented with growing cantaloupe.  It was really touch and go for a while.  And then there were baby melons and I was scared to get my hopes up, and then one was ripe and I was worried it would be nasty like the cucumbers, but it wasn't.  They are delicious. Check out that monster in the back!