The Gang

Cody, Brett and Aaron in Miami.

I LOVE old pictures and I LOVE my brothers. There's another classic photo of The Gang that I've had tucked away in my scriptures for years now.... I'll post it as soon as I get to a scanner. I would have waited to put both up at the same time but I had to get a post up before the day was over. It's been 4 months since I set the goal to post at least once a week and I'm doing it!!!!

Treasures from the Garden

FindYourSpot.com

A few days ago I typed "Cool places to Live" into my Google Search. Yes, I'm a nerd like that. Jake and I have every option open to us right now and we don't know where we'll be living in a few months. So I found this website called FindYourSpot.com and it has you fill out a questionnaire, probably about 75 questions encompassing weather, economics, safety, religious preferences, etc.  Supposedly it determines what cities you would enjoy living in most. I'm not sure why it gave me four more options than it gave Jake.... but anyway, who knew we were such Southerners?!?!? I had never even entertained the idea of Arkansas before this survey! I also thought it was cute how a lot of Jake's options included the word "springs" in the city name, or sounded like they were some kind of little river village getaway. And out of all the places we could possibly live, Jake and I actually had two cities in common from our separate surveys: 
Gainesville, Florida and Shreveport Louisiana.  Well, Jake does like grits....

Ocala, FL St. George, UT Greenville, SC Gainseville, FL Little Rock, AR Athens, GA Hampton, VA Tulsa, OK Hattiesburg, MS Clarksville, TN Biloxi-Gulfport, MS Shreveport-Bossier City, LA Kailua-Kona, HI San Bernardino, CA Jackson, MS Tallahassee, FL Port Charlotte, FL Alexandria, LA Valencia, CA Tuscaloosa, AL Chattanooga, TN Fayetteville, AR Auburn, AL Norfolk, VA

Salisburg, MD Hot Springs, AR Natchitoches, LA Hickory, NC Heber Springs, AR Eureka Springs, AR Shreveport, LA Deland, FL Covington, LA Gainsville, GA Mountain Home, AR Cherokee Village, AR Leesville, LA Crystal River, FL Milwaukie, OR Gainesville, FL Monroe, LA Aiken, SC San Marcos, TX Winterville, NC

Television VS. Books

Two wonderful things happened in my life today. It only cost me $1.50 and now I have access to HGTV (Home & Garden Television!) I could watch this channel AAALLLLLLL day. However, I laid under these trees and read the last of the Hunger Games books AAALLLLLLL day. The weather has been so perfect here.... This whole week we've slept every night with the windows open and hung out every day with the doors open. LOOOOOVE IT!

Rock Climbing in the Canyon

JAKE

Last weekend our AWESOME friends Josh & Katrina took us rock climbing up Provo Canyon. They're hard core and decided they wanted a new hobby one year so they started buying climbing equipment. How cool is that? I was more nervous than I let anyone know but it turned out to be really fun. We did a 15.3 or something like that. All I know is that the level of difficulty was higher than what most people start with, but I'm pretty much amazing and Jake can do everything professionally. Actually, we only climbed about 40 feet but the view was beautiful and I'll definitely go again.... once my muscles stop hurting.

CODY

9/11

The Attic

We've lived in this rental house for over 2 years now and we've always wondered what was up in the "attic." The trap door in our ceiling that leads to the attic has been sealed off, and the old chimney has been walled up as well. One of the outside windows on the top half of the house has been replaced with a board and a couple of nails so we figured we could do some exploring without our landlord noticing :) We actually asked him about it before and he said that he'd never been up in the attic or even looked in there. Jake pried open the board and quickly decided that he needed a handkerchief over his mouth and a head lamp.

We were able to borrow a really tall ladder from Diamond Rental (our friend Russ hooked us up) and the excitement grew! What would we find up there? An old hat? Maybe someone's treasure chest full of old paintings and quilts and diaries? Some gold bars?! . . . Ok, I'll admit that Jake and I watch a lot of history channel shows like American Pickers and Pawn Stars so our minds have been running wild with ideas of what we might find in this old pioneer house.

What we found. . . NOTHING. Well, we did find some animal droppings. Large ones at that! But no antique furniture, no box of love letters, and no gold bars. There was nothing up there but a little bit of insulation, a patchy roof and dust. The bricks on one side of the chimney were all crushed and falling in on each other-- most likely the reason they walled it up instead of trying to fix it. And then there was a second chimney in the attic that doesn't exist on the first floor of the house??? A little strange but nothing to get real worked up about. Very anti-climactic, like this post. I think the mystery of the attic was more exciting than our actual findings.

Please don't scam me. It's just plain annoying.

For the past few weeks Jake and I have been searching crazedlist (it's craigslist but you can search multiple states at a time) in hopes of finding a motorhome to purchase. We found what sounded like the PERFECT motorhome and after we emailed them we noticed that it was not only posted in Montana, but also Texas, California, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, etc. When they emailed us back they "all of a sudden had moved from where they said they were originally located because they got a new job in L.A. but now they were selling the motorhome through eBay and yada yada yada. It was a scam! This past week I found a different motorhome that seemed too good to be true and when they contacted me guess what-- same story! They got a new job in L.A. and moved but now they were selling through eBay-- exact same story, cut and pasted into another email. Ca-razy. These people were getting on my nerves, not because they were trying to scam me but because they were wasting my time! I just want to find a good (oh ya and real) motorhome. I hope nobody else falls for their scam, especially old people who are not very eBay savvy and who are always looking for motorhomes. Haha, I guess this means Jake and I must be old if we just spend our days looking for motorhomes. Anyway, that's just one scam story, here's a second that happened in the same week!

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday, ugh. I always hate admitting that I support Wal-Mart with my money but that's another story for another day. As I was returning to my car (empty handed hooray) a couple, late twenties in an old red pick up truck parked near my car waved me over. They told me a sobby story about how they were trying to get back home to Logan but their engine kept flooding and something or other blah blah blah. They were just $12 short of the car piece they needed and the guy said he'd be able to change it himself and then they could get back home. The Auto Parts store simply wouldn't let them slide on the $12 so they needed some help. The girl also mentioned that her mom told her, "There are some nice people in this area maybe you could just ask around for some help." I thought to myself, ya there are nice people in this town and you're trying to take advantage of one right now. I immediately put my guard up and told them that I never carry cash anymore, just plastic in my wallet so I couldn't hand over twelve dollars. I wished them luck and got in my car when I thought to myself that this could be my opportunity this week to pay it forward. It's true that the truck hadn't been parked there when I went into the store, but I had also noticed a couple of sleeping bags and some rubbermaid bins in the bed of their truck so maybe their story had a little bit of truth to it. I pulled my car up next to theirs and asked if their car was running at all. They said yes and so I offered to follow them to the Auto Zone store where they could get their car part and I'd pay the extra $12 with my card. Then they said that the only Auto Zone who had the right part was in Lehi (another 20 minutes up the Interstate). I kind of squished up my face like I didn't want to do that but then I decided that would be fine. I had extra time and I was determined to help these people so I smiled and told them I could follow them to Lehi. The guy leaned away from me to talk to the girl in the passenger seat and hesitated a little bit when he turned back to me and asked again if I would really do that. I nodded happily and said sure and then pulled my car over for them to pass in front of me so I could follow. They took their time backing out and then pulled up and stopped next to me. The girl in the passenger seat leaned out and was definitely pretending to talk on her phone when she told me, "Oh my mom just called and she's sending somebody." They no longer needed my help.

Really? Really people? I was being VERY nice and you just wanted to SCAM twelve dollars out of me. Well sorry, but I'm not buying your crack for you this week.

Hunger Games update

Borrowed it. Read it. Good book.