Christmas 2008

So there hasn't been much going on, other than working and sleeping, so I've been kinda on a hiatus from blogging. Of course the holidays always gives the opportunity to get things going again so here's a mantage of our Christmas this year. It was fun because we all went to Mom's for Christmas, and because of the potential snow storm that was out there, we spent the night. I don't think all of us have slept under the same roof for Christmas in 10 years. It was a nice time, being together with family. Greg and Leigh even ended up staying all day on Christmas so it was a lot of fun. Probably a good thing since that threatening storm that we never saw (until Christmas night when I was driving home that is) really slammed Northern Utah. I just love when we all have the opportunity to kick back and relax together.

Grumpy Morning??

Crazy Cat Lady...

So some women develop into a crazy cat lady as time goes on and they are left alone. I, on the other hand, was born a crazy cat lady. Case in point, my very first word was Tigger, our cat at the time's name. Maybe it's because we've had cats since the day I was born, but more likely it was an obsession born into me through generations of crazy cat ladies. It comes from my mother's family, and who knows how many generations it goes back but it's there. As a child I was reading technical books about cats and as soon as I owned my first place I got Mitzi, followed by Jack a year later.

Well now I've been involved with a little kitty rescue the past two months. On Labor Day I was walking around outside and found these soaking wet, freezing, little wild kittens. They were the most pathetic things I'd ever seen, so of course I started feeding them. Well after two months the neighbor started to complain because they were walking on her car so I had to catch them. They will be moving, shortly, to live at my Mom's barn but in the meantime I just had to post their pictures because they are so cute.

Birthday Adventures

My mother's birthday always falls at the same time as the deer hunt, so, while her husband John goes hunting we always go for a birthday adventure. Usually we head south, to the warmth, but this year she wanted to check out Lava Hot Springs in Idaho. After two weekends of horrible weather (one even involving snow) we were blessed with the perfect Indian Summer ever! We left Friday night to go up to Greg's where we were going to be spending the night. Of course, in usual birthday adventure, we accidentally got off the freeway, got lost, found our way back, and then ended up scaring the guy tailgating us with Mom's crazy driving, but we eventually got there in one piece.

The next day, after a leisurely morning, we headed off to Idaho. We stopped in Preston for lunch at this fun little diner (it's across from the bowling alley that was filmed in Napoleon Dynamite). What made it so fun is that it's also an antique store so you're eating amongst all the old prizes.













Since this was very much a road trip we just enjoyed ourselves with stops at random pumpkin patches or a juant down a dirt road to get that perfect Autumn shot. Here's some of the places we saw...







































Finally we got to our destination. It was so nice. We went to the hot springs that were at the inn rather than the public ones so that it was a bit quieter. The water was awesome! The big pool was like bathwater and they got hotter from there. How nice is it to be out in your swimsuit in October, in Idaho! It was the best afternoon ever...

The old man comes to town...

Ok so I've been a very lazy blogger lately, truthfully not much has been going on, but a week ago my dad did make one of his stops in Utah. Actually, this is the first time that he has come for a significant time, more than just a weekend that is, so I figured I would post some of the pictures from our time together. We went up to Greg's house so that we could all be together. We had grand plans of all the fun outdoor Autumn type things we could do but Mother Nature had a different idea for us. Saturday morning dawned with chilly temps and a downpour of rain that lasted all day. We hung around the house for a bit but then we finally could stand it no longer and had a showery picnic in the park followed by a trip to the video store. Not very exciting but it was seriously cold! Sunday morning dawned with beautiful sunshine so we decided to go to pumpkin patch, after grabbing a quick lunch (being Sunday in Cache county there wasn't much else to do). We wanted to do some leaf peeping, however, the storm blew back in and as it was late we decided to just head for home. My ride home was more of an adventure however. As it started to rain everyone jumped into their separate vehicles. Jason had already left and Greg was making his way up the drive when I turned the key in the ignition and got...NOTHING! Making a frantic grab for the cell phone to try and stop Greg I discovered that of course I had no cell service. Luckily for Dad and I this other couple was jumping in their car at that moment and were kind enough to jump the car. (Thank goodness I had finally bought jumper cables after the dead battery incident of 2007) Well we get on our way and figure everything is ok, and since I need to get gas, pull of the road in an ugly area of Ogden and of course the car would not start again. My dad thought the battery cable connection was just corroded so after cleaning it we tried again and....still got NOTHING. Well once again we relied on the kindness of strangers and got this little teeny man driving an incredibly huge truck (seriously he couldn't even get the hood open, just had to keep shoving it upwards hoping that it would stay up with enough force behind the shove) came to our rescue. At this time my dad was just puzzling away trying to figure out what was wrong with the car, and since we didn't know we decided it was wise to turn off all other power suckers in the car. It made for a harrowing last few miles when the sun had finally set and we were running without lights. Of course the next day when we had Jason come over to help the thing started up just fine and ran the best it had run all year. It wasn't worth taking in, and that evening I got a small blessing in the fact that my neighbor that I park next to had his father there fixing his car and the man had a tool that he used to test both my battery and my alternator and gave them a clean bill of health. Thank goodness for kind souls! Oh and the cause of all the problems turned out to be a loose ground cable on the battery so all the stall outs and poor idling that my car has been doing were all related to that. I'm pleased to announce that the car is doing great! Anyway, here are some pictures from my weekend vacation.

Vacationing....at home?

So last week I took the week of work to do a little vacationing. Years ago I swore I would never take a week off unless I was headed some where fun like Hawaii, Mexico, or back East. Well I've finally come to a point in my life where, for many different reasons, I have no one that can travel with me so due to desperation I was forced to take my week vacation at home. Maybe it's old age setting in or something but, truth be told, it didn't sound as dull or depressing as it used to to be stuck at home. It was so nice to stay up till 2 AM reading a favorite book and then sleep till after 10 the next morning. When I saw the YW pres. that I serve with out for a morning walk I didn't think my usual "man, I hate you" well because I was out for a morning stroll, too, instead driving in to work. (I don't REALLY mean that I hate her :) ) It was fun to have no schedule! Anyway, it gave me some time to catch up on the millions of little projects I always have going on. I took the opportunity to do some scrapbooking (my first time doing digital scrapbooking) and got two of my chairs painted from white to black, and FINALLY finished the quilt that I started something like 5 years ago. (People that know me well know that I'm the queen of starting a project and then getting diverted by something new and never finishing). So here is some of the fruits of my vacation labors....