Camping Craziness

This post is a few days late, but life in general prevented me from getting on until now. This past weekend we left the craziness of the world behind and traded it in for some good old relaxing craziness up in the mountains. My family tries to do a camping trip every year, but it has become difficult for us all to get up there at the same time, so this year Grandma and Auntie DaLene stayed for a week while the rest of us came and went as we could. Josh and I, along with my parents and sister, went up Friday night. The dogs were excited and ready to go!

Poor Shena would later lose her enthusiasm after spraining her tail. She lives life with such excitement and energy, but sometimes the poor girl beats herself to death!

It was nice to get away, and we had a lot of fun. The food was great, with Taco Salad and Dutch oven roast beef and potatoes as the highlights. There was also Dutch oven popcorn and giant roasting marshmallows. There were about 20 of us up there, so nights around the fire were full of fun conversation. Aside from 20 people, we also had six dogs...

Note little Kashus in the back. He loved the dogs, and even learned a few lessons from Toby that included how to stick your face in a bowl of water to take a drink...oops! It was interesting having to wade through the dogs to get to the other side of camp:

One of the highlights was our Nerf war:

You can take the soldier out of the military, but can you take the military out of the soldier?

Kurtis' nerd look...

We had a lot of fun, playing protect the commander and storm the base...that is, until cranky rude caretaker came out and yelled at us for playing in a "public park." Tell me, what good is a public park if you can't play in it? When EJ told him he was rude, he once again overreacted and decided to call the cops. He proceeded to yell at Mom and I when we brought Lexi over, because "dogs aren't allowed in the park." Except that she's a service animal. Needless to say the cop wasted his time, told us the guy felt "threatened," and said we were allowed to use the (gasp) "public" park. Did we really need the drama?

Of course we all had our cozy tents set up (in every nook and cranny available). Here's Mom taking a nap in hers...with some tent crashers, it seems!

Speaking of tent crashers, take a look at these sleeping bag stealers! Thankfully I had just woken up, or else I might have been disgruntled when Toby came over and laid right on top of me!

And of course, as with any good vacation, it was nice to come home. The dogs weren't incredibly thrilled to get baths, but we sure couldn't wait to wash the dirt and smoke away. We can't wait until the next vacation. Ready or not, Atlanta here we come!

1 Year!

I can hardly believe it has been a year already, but this weekend we celebrated our first anniversary! Unfortunately I have no pictures to accompany this post, because our trip up to Lava Hot Springs involved too much water for my camera, and it stayed safely in the car. We spent the morning soaking in the fantastic hot springs, and then played in the olympic pool for a couple of hours. Lunch was at a cute hamburger place that had  really yummy food. After lunch and some more time at the olympic pool, we went back to the hot springs for one last soak. We ended the day with a relaxing couple's massage at the spa. Our original plan was to spend the night up there, but the hotel looked like roach motel, and there were no other vacancies, so we came home early and enjoyed dinner at Applebee's instead.

Josh got me a beautiful butterfly necklace and earrings set, and I got him the History Channel's "Monster Quest" on DVD, which we are watching as I type. It has been a busy but wonderful year, and we are looking forward to many more!

Summer Fun - Holidays and Lakes Hooray!

Prepare for picture overload, since I haven't written in awhile and we have had some fun since then! First was the 4th of July. The actual 4th was on Sunday, and we had Monday off. I love the way that worked, because we essentially celebrated for 3 days straight! First was the family party on Saturday. Everyone brought a new recipe to try and we had TONS of food! And it was all very yummy! Then of course came the fireworks, which were beautiful this year. On Monday we celebrated with Josh's family by going to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Yum! Sorry, I don't have pictures available on this computer, but you can link to "Our Days" to see some pictures from the party at my parents house. Maybe I'll post some of my own later on!

This Saturday we went up to Bear Lake with Josh's family. It's always such a fun trip! This year the lake was very full, and we had to wade through this to get to a small patch of beach...

And I do mean tiny. Our little island was about as wide as Josh's reach. At least there was beach to be found! It was fun having water surround us on all sides. This year Zelan was old enough to splash around. She is adorable! Here she is, followed by a few pictures of us goofing off on the beach.

We got to play on a wave runner. Those are lots of fun, but Josh always tries to make me scream on purpose. His sister Meagan took these next few pictures. Thanks Meg!

Josh looks great on the wakeboard...

And me...

Well I try...

The Great Flood of 2010

We all love a bit of entertainment to break up a long work day. Fortunately, the construction right outside the office provides plenty of it. The latest...a broken water pipe leading to...you guessed it...a flood.

This is shortly after the flood started, and BEFORE the construction workers actually noticed the water.

And then just a few minutes later...

Within half an hour...

And still going strong! I'll keep you posted!

Skateboard Drama

There is nothing like a warm, relaxing evening to put you in a good mood. And there is nothing like a border collie blonde moment to take you out of that mood, and put you into a post anxiety-attack grumpy mood. Friday evening started out wonderfully. We went out to dinner. Chile's was our restaurant choice for the evening. Apparently we were in the mood to gain a few extra pounds, and I was craving (in the oh-not-so-pregnant way) a big juicy hamburger.

After dinner we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by relaxing on the lawn. Aside from the ugly white fence dividing our yard from our neighbor's, our front yard is a pretty nice place to be. So we hooked Toby up to the long leash and went outside.

Shena is usually very well behaved, and seems to hate leaving the yard, so we left her off leash. We though it would be good practice for her. She comes pretty reliably, and we'd done this before, so we figured that all would be well.

Oh how wrong we were. Shena was well-behaved, for the most part, but she has a major flaw - she is terrified of skateboards. We did not see the teenagers coming before Shena was on her way toward them at full speed. She ran immediately for the skateboarder, nipping at him to try and get him off the skateboard. Bad idea Shena. Of course I panicked, because Shena has already (wrongly) had animal control called on her once before. Now she was biting at teenagers? She didn't hurt the kid, of course. Her intention was to rescue him from the evil skateboard, not to actually bite him. And, luckily, animal control did not have to get involved.

But something had to be done about Shena's aversion to skateboards. So we took drastic measures. We borrowed my sister's skateboard and put her on the leash. Josh rode the skateboard back and forth, and she went crazy! I had a bucket-full of treats on hand to reward her when she was calm. At first she wasn't even interested in the treats, but eventually she did stop barking and yanking on the leash.

We've still got a long way to go. She is decidedly unhappy about the skateboard's presence in our house, and spent all day giving me this look:

Well, she will just have to deal with the skateboard, because it's not going anywhere...and it will be ridden again. Oh Shena.

"Accidentally Cool"

I had to share this picture! The second bud of my lilies bloomed this morning, so I snapped a quick shot with my cell phone. The lighting turned out fantastic! Beautiful bright orange flowers against a dark background. I got a totally cool picture, completely by accident!

Welcome Summer!

The summer solstice was just a few days ago, and so far we've kicked off the summer with some nice hot weather. After a rainy month, I must admit I'm glad to see the sun again. The only drawback is that the dojo heats up like an oven these days, and it doesn't seem like the water has been hooked up to the swamp cooler there. Yikes!

To celebrate the official arrival of summer, my first lily bloomed! Since my thumb is not exactly green (it leans towards black), I was very excited to see the first of my bulbs actually come to life. I have a few lily plants sprouting, but so far this is the only bloom.

The blooms came in "assorted colors" so I had no idea what color this flower would be. It turned out to be a fantastically bright orange, as you can see. I haven't seen a single sign of a freesia or gladiola plant yet, so maybe they won't be coming up this year. I can probably blame the neighborhood cats for that one, since they seem to think my little flower garden makes a nice litter box.

Also to kick off the summer, Josh has been studying hard for the math accuplacer test, to see if he can get out of his math class. He needs a C or better to test out of the class, and that's what we're praying for. He'll be taking the test in the next couple of weeks. As for me, nothing is really new. I just finished up a writing assignment and am looking forward to getting paid for it so that I can buy a new swim suit for our Bear Lake trip (or perhaps new brake pads for my car?). Other than that it's just work work work. At least I have a job though, and in this economy that's something to be thankful for.