Catch-up

So here is the last year in review. Nothing last summer, nothing last fall. Fran got engaged in November, Esther moved in with me in December. Spent a great Christmas at the Island Park cabin with the entire family. Learned that my niece Lillie is a wuss and Kenna loves the feel of speed. And that the cabin is a little small for 11 people. Fran got married in March, my parents decided to go on a mission in May, Laura and Mike announced they were having another baby (boy) and we had a Homer family reunion. Not to pat my own back, but Esther and I planned the best activity ever.... the "Homer Amazing Race". Its success is contributed more to every one's willingness to participate with a great attitude (i.e. shove Twinkies in their mouth or go Geo caching) than by our creativity or planning. Regardless it was awesome.

This summer I got together with some dear dear college friends. Truly realized how blessed I am to have such amazing people in my life, even if I only see them ever 3 or 4 years. Ester and I decided to plant a garden. She dug out the area, I finished digging it out and then terraced the area, complete with huge logs from the range. Mike helped me drill and pound them into place with re bar. This was a huge project. It looked GOOD! Then we planted and discovered that the soil had been sterilized and everything but a few pepper plants and one tomato plant died within a month. The good news is that no weeds grew either and I didn't have to weed :)

Now it's fall. My parents got their mission call to the Alpine German speaking mission in January (a trip to Germany/Austria and Switzerland doesn't sound to bad ehe?). Laura and Mike are leaving Logan, Fran and Kenz are going to move to Morgan. I am working Woman's and Children's as well as Medical/Oncology. The two polar opposites when it comes to floors in the hospital. I like to think of it as well rounded. Anyway. That is the quick update. I'm sure there will be great stories coming later.

Intimations Of Aging

My siblings and I were shooting skeet at the Range and we started talking about movies we loved growing up. It was raining, so our plans to go to the Rodeo were not looking like much fun. Esther suggested we watch The Man From Snowy River and Return To Snowy River. These seem to be those movies that were not well acted, were not well made but a clasic none the less.

At our house, it was one of those career inspiring movies. After you watched it, you wanted to live on a ranch and become a master horseman/woman and learn how to do cool things with a whip. Maybe it was the cool Australian accents, maybe it was the cute actors or maybe it was the music, but you remember it. (Digression: Same thing with Top Gun. We wanted to be fighter pilots or at least work around aircrafts that went mock-anything and own a bullet bike and cool sunglasses. One of us even went as far as to ask others to refer to them as "Mav" ).

I went to Blockbuster to rent the movies. The young girl behind the counter was chatting with me about the movie as compared to the original poem and books. They didn't have either movie there and she checked all the Blockbusters in the Ogden and Layton area's. None. She suggested I go to Hollywood Video. The man behind the counter had me repeat the name 3 times before he got it right, and then asked me if it was a sci-fi movie.

Really? This is a circa 1982 or something. Not that old, I thought. They had one copy that would be out for 3 more days, didn't have the sequel and called 2 other stores for me to see if they had it. No luck, neither had it and neither had not heard of it. He suggested I go to FYE and "pay like $3.00 or something for those older movies that no one rents anymore".

Thanks buddy. I called FYE. It didn't get better.

The guy in the video department had me repeat the titles only two times; said that he thought his grandpa may have told him about it. Seriously? They had the first movie for purchase ($13.98 thank you very much), but suggested that I look on E-bay for the sequel b/c "it may be old enough that it was never put on DVD".

I can see this type of reaction to some random films we watched such as Condorman or the original cartoon of The Little Mermaid, but for a clasic like Snowy River? (Sigh) I now own the movie, still remember most of the lines and Esther and I both want to end up with cowboys that look like Jim Craig. I don't think it will be easy for her to find a cowboy in Boston. I need to put "learn to use a whip" and "learn to ride a horse" on my 30-list.

Paradise

I found it. New Zealand is my version of paradise. I have no idea how to start telling you about it. Long flight out (over 30 hrs of travel) get to Wellington, meet up with Alison and spent the next 10 days catching up. It's not often I get the chance to spend one-on-one time with old friends. It's also not often that people are able to remain friends for over 20 years. I feel old just saying that, but it's also one of the best things about getting older...some things just get more rewarding with age. One of the best things about New Zealand is that our dollar is worth 1.53 there. Translation: it was the cheaper to be NZ playing than it was to be in Utah at work. Why did I come back you ask? Still trying to figure that out myself. Australia was cool as well, just not as cheap.
North Island on our way to the Bay of Islands. This is the rest area.... seriously. No bears in New Zealand, but of course I had to pick the botanical Garden walk that was recently the site of a crocodile attack.
South Island about 10 minutes from Mt. Cook. I did not photo shop that rainbow in there.
We ended up going through 3 pods of dolphins in 2 days. I loved every minute of it :)
This is a picture of sun rise on the Pirate Ship in the Doubtful Sound on the south island in the Fiordlands National Park
That is me saying "hello" from 15,000 ft. Just proof that I will do about anything for a good view.
Seriously..... so much fun. Mom and Buba, you have to try this!

They wrote a message on your hands for you. Mine said "no worries" but I forgot to put them out for the camera b/c I was to busy checking out the view from coast to coast. And the volcano's . You could see both sides of the north island, the lake, the volcano's (aka Mt. Doom and the Land of Mordor) and the sunset all at once. When was the last time you saw a sunset on the east and west coasts at the same time ! :)
That is about the only view I had of the plane.
Em and I in Sydney. We were going to put our feet in the bay until we noticed all the jelly fish floating there. Changed the plan

More pictures of the Doubtful sound. This is Seal Rock (for obvious reasons). It is just past the area where we saw all the endangered penguins.

We got to help shovel coal into the old steam engine. They polish that brass every day.

This is the cape. It's at the end of 90 mile beach and is the tip of the north island. Beautiful!!


90 Mile beach, where there was some great sea-shell hunting going on. And lots and lots of fishing.

Blah Blah Blah

Not so much to update you all on, and no pictures of it either. The most exciting thing was purchasing a place to sit. After 2 months of sitting in a hard wood chair and laying on the hard wood floors to watch TV, you can bet I was excited. It's also a little awkward to have your visiting teachers come and all you can say is "please... have a seat" and motion toward the coffee table. They thought I was kidding at first, followed by an awkward silence, and then some compliments on my book shelves as they carefully situated themselves on the coffee table. My front room is centered around those book shelves, so seating had to fit into the space between the two shelves. I decided on a a couch and a chair-and-a-half, which is the perfect fit. It also makes for the perfect place to curl up and read in... I LOVE them.

Reading is the perfect pass time when it snows so much you can't get into your driveway. My car was literally plowing (pushing snow with the front bumper) its way up the driveway until it started to slide back into the road. I had a hard time opening the door to get out b/c the snow was almost two inches above the bottom of the door. Totals from today's storm only. That's when two nice neighbors came with two very big snow blowers and plowed me out. I love this place :)
The other exciting thing is that I finally got my tickets to New Zealand! After doing some research on all the options of ways to spend my time there, I can't believe I haven’t been there before. A month is not going to be long enough!!! I am going to be visiting a friend that lives there, and she e-mails itinerary suggestions that include words like bungee jumping, glow worm caves and zorbing. Have I mentioned how excited I am?

The House

For the three of you that even see this blog, sorry it's taken me so long to post. Still working on getting access to the Internet at the new house. I finally hauled my computer from the basement to the kitchen table to see if I could find a wireless connection from one of my nice neighbors. It worked! Kind of. I have lost this connection twice so far and am trying to cut and paste from Word to save time...anyway, the process is not important. So I put up Christmas lights for the first time on my own. I was thinking about skipping it, until Kyle, they guy I bought the house from, showed up one Sunday morning to put the lights on the roof for me. How nice it that? I guess if he is willing to put them up on the roof, I can wrap a few trees. Oh yea, and the neighbors shovel my driveway. I love this area!

Laura, Lilly and McKenna came and helped me pick out and decorate my tree and some gingerbread cookies.
This is my new nativity scene. Esther gave it to me last year for Christmas and I am loving that it looks so good in my front room!

I don't have any current pictures of the house, but here are some from the day my family moved me in.

The front room. Mike helped my build the frame for the map out of wood from the barn at the range. By "helped me build" I mean that he did all the work while I held the wood steady or handed him tools.
The upstairs bathroom. The only room in the house that is just how I want it.
Basement family room and kitchen.

What I fondly refer to as the Grand Canyon Bathroom. Apparently there were several rooms like this prior to the remodel, two owners ago. Do you think their choice in decor has anything to do with the suspicious plants the previous owner found growing in the greenhouse?

Kitchen. Just in case you are wondering, the pink post-it's were so I could try to figure out how I wanted the kitchen organized. It didn't really work as I ended up moving things around for two weeks anyway. It does make me feel better though knowing that I tried.